Dearly Beloved
by cats-tale
Summary: Gene and Alex both hate weddings so why are they getting ready to attend one? I've rated this M as it will end up as that in the next chapter or so.
1. The Bitterest Pill

**I wrote this before Series 2 started, but got distracted by what was actually happening on screen. Suffice to say, that although I'm ignoring most what's happened in Series 2 , Chris and Shaz have got engaged, and Gene and Alex are closer than ever in many ways. This story takes place in the late spring of 1983.**

**The other thing is that this fic doesn't easily lend itself to being broken up into chapters as it's mostly written from a stream of conciousness POV. I've done my best to stop where there's a natural break, as it would be far too long to post in one big chunk. **

**Let me know what you think. Cheers. **

**NB: I don't own these characters, that honour belongs to Kudos and the BBC. I'm just playing with them for my own twisted amusement. **

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Gene Hunt scowled and pushed his fry-up around his plate, unable to bring himself to eat another mouthful. Rubbing a hand across his face, he sighed heavily at the thought of the long day ahead of him. His head throbbed with a savage ache from the night before and his stomach growled, threatening to rapidly re-acquaint him with the few mouthfuls of bacon and fried bread that he had managed to swallow before his revulsion overcame his hunger.

Christ, he loathed weddings. They made him feel uncomfortable and awkward, and even more like the spectre at the feast than he usually was, as he lurked in the background, haunted by the memories of the mess he'd made of his own marriage. This one would be even worse; everyone watching him, noting his every bloody move. Fuck. Why the hell had he agreed to go with her? What had he been thinking?

He couldn't quite believe that things had ended up this way. He'd always imagined, naively it would now seem, that the team would go as they always had done; colleagues, friends, always there for each other, arguing, drinking and laughing their way through this shitty, thankless life together.

But it wasn't to be. Now everything was changing. The wedding that was due to take place this morning, in just under half an hour to be precise, was proof of that. He shook his head in despair; Married. Hitched. Wed. God help us all. Gene patted in his pockets for his lighter and tapped a cigarette from the packet that lay next to his unwanted and rapidly congealing breakfast.

He'd never thought it would happen. He'd been convinced that the job was all that any of them would ever need, but he'd been wrong. It turned out that what was needed was a pair of soft, doe eyes, a mop of dark hair and a sympathetic smile. A few drinks, a candlelit dinner or two, and less than year later, the question had been popped and that had been that; marriage was a done deal and he'd suddenly been surplus to requirements.

He glanced up as Luigi took his plate away, tutting sadly at the amount of food still left on it. "This is not good, Mr Hunt. It is bad for you to always drink so much and eat so little. You will make yourself ill." Luigi stopped realising that Gene's attention was focused entirely on someone else and he wasn't listening to a word he said.

He turned to see what had transfixed the usually self-possessed DCI, and saw her, standing shyly in the doorway, looking like a fairy tale princess, her hair pinned up on top of her head in some deceptively simple style, the perfect fit of her dress clinging to every perfect curve of her perfect body. He looked back at Gene's face and what he saw there was enough to make his heart break. Luigi sighed sadly before fixing a cheerful smile on his face and holding out his arms to her.

"Signorina Drake. You look beautiful……no…… you look more than beautiful….you look stunning…the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. Come…... you have time for a drink before you both go, yes?"

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_Alex put down her blusher brush and stared at her face in the mirror. It was the first time since she'd woken up that she'd been alone in the peace and quiet of her flat and she relished the silence. She'd left the party early the night before, leaving Shaz and the other girls to go on to a nightclub somewhere up in Camden, while she'd taken a taxi back home, crawling into bed exhausted and yet laying awake for hours. _

_Shaz had collected her early this morning for their appointment at the hairdressers, chattering constantly about this and that, fizzing with excitement. Alex had been glad of the company really, it stopped her thinking about things too much. __The hairdresser had pinned her hair up at the back of her head, leaving tendrils of it to fall softly around her face, and then she'd set the small jewelled comb in her hair, attaching the fresh flowers to it with a few hairgrips. She'd had to push them in firmly to get them to stay and Alex had had tears of pain in her eyes when it was finished; at least she thought they were tears of pain. She'd shied away from examining her emotional state too much as the woman had fussed about re-arranging a curl, here and there._

"_Oh, sweetheart, don't cry! Here…." She'd passed her a tissue. "That's better……See? You look beautiful. " Shaz had come over to her, her hands feeling for the flowers in her own hair, as she twisted herself round to see them in the mirror. _

"_Oh, they look lovely! Don't they, Alex?" She'd grinned hugely and looked at her watch, __almost bouncing up and down with the excitement of it all. "Only two hours to go!" _

_They'd shared the taxi home, and as she'd dropped Alex back at her flat, Shaz had squeezed her arm tightly. "I'll see you at the Church then! I can't wait!...... You sure you don't want to come and get ready with me and the girls?"_

_Hurriedly Alex had assured her that she was fine on her own, before shutting the taxi door and fleeing up the stairs to the safety of her small flat. She'd forced herself to eat something before taking a bath, being careful not to get her hair wet. She'd dried herself slowly, smoothing on her perfumed body cream, forcing herself to concentrate only on the task at hand. Even so, her stomach had twisted into harsh knot of nerves, as she'd sat down to do her make-up._

_Why the hell had she asked him to go with her? What had she been thinking? She hated weddings, they made her feel uncomfortable and all too aware of the dismal failure she'd been as a wife. She thought back to her wedding to Peter; Hampstead Registry Office on a cold November day, made even chillier by Evan's icy disapproval of her choice of husband. He couldn't believe that she'd been foolish enough to fall for Peter in the first place, let alone stupid enough to find herself pregnant by him._

_Shaking her head at the painful memories, she gazed at herself in the mirror, studying the flawlessly made-up face before her with a calm, eerie detachment. For an unsettling moment, it didn't feel as though it was her own reflection looking back at her. Maybe it wasn't? Maybe she'd been here so long that she was someone else entirely now? She shook her head, smiling at herself wryly. "Come on Alex; snap out of it. You're going to a wedding not a funeral."_

_She made her way over to the wardrobe, carefully taking her dress from its hanger and stepping into it with slow concentration, taking care not to crease it too much. She did the zip up at the back as far as it would go, but was unable to do up the last couple of inches no matter how hard she twisted and turned. Finally, she gave up and surveyed herself once more in the full-length mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door, still not recognising the remote and elegant woman reflected there. The dress clung to her body, the corseted bodice pushing up her breasts and accentuating her waist. _

_Inevitably, try as she might to avoid it, her eyes were drawn to the photograph that she kept tucked in the mirror frame. It shouldn't really be there at all; she'd promised that all reminders of that time would be tidied away, but Alex had been unable to get rid of this one particular thing._

_Luigi had taken it at Chris and Shaz's engagement party, and it showed the five of them, squashed up against each other, smiling for the camera. Ray was pulling a ridiculous face as usual and Gene had his arm around her, holding her against him tightly. He'd maintained that he'd had to hold her close so that Luigi could get them all into the shot, but he hadn't let go straight away when the picture had been taken. She remembered the feel of his arm wrapped around her waist, his indrawn breath of surprise as she leaned into his embrace, the look of desire in his eyes ……_

_Enough. She couldn't think like this. She had a wedding to attend, and more urgently than that, they were due at the church in less than half an hour. She gathered up her small handbag and the delicate bouquet of roses from the kitchen table, and pulling the door of the flat closed behind her, she made her way downstairs. _

_She hesitated in the doorway of the restaurant for a moment, watching as Luigi nagged Gene about something. As she stood there, unsure of whether or not to interrupt them, Gene looked up and caught sight of her, staring as if transfixed, while the smoke from his cigarette trickled lazily from his mouth, wreathing around him in a shifting, blue haze, before drifting slowly up into the air. _

_Alex blushed under his scrutiny, looking down at her hands with a small, awkward smile, as she smoothed out the skirts of her dress. When she raised her eyes to his again, he was still staring at her, his eyes dark and cloudy, utterly unreadable._

_There was a pause, the silence seeming to stretch forever as everything that had happened between them, everything that they'd ever been to one another hung in the balance. Then Luigi was moving forwards to greet her, complementing her outrageously as he offered her a drink and the spell was broken, the moment lost._

_She turned her attention to Luigi, laughing at his flattery, accepting the glass of champagne that he'd poured for her, sipping it nervously as she tried not to look over to where Gene was sitting. Her fingers fidgeted with the ribbons that trailed from her bouquet, twisting them round and round as she tried to concentrate on what Luigi was saying. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gene stand up, and stride across the floor with his customary long-limbed grace to stand beside her at the bar. Her hands trembled slightly as she abruptly put the champagne glass down, afraid of spilling it. As she moved to face him, still unable to meet his gaze, the material of her dress pulled slightly and the zip, still not properly secured, slipped open a little further._

"_Your dress is open at the back," he growled, his gruffly honeyed voice making her shiver involuntarily. _

"_I know. I can't quite reach it," she snapped, berating herself for letting him have such an __effect on her today of all days, turning away from him once more_

"_Luigi? Can you do my dress up for me?" There was silence and Alex craned over the bar to see if she could spot him, but the little Italian was nowhere to be seen. "Luigi?" she called, a slight note of desperation edging into her voice. Still nothing. Shit, she thought, furiously. Now I'll have to ask him. She let out a sigh, curling her fingers into her palms as she turned back to Gene "Would you….?" she asked, her tone hesitant._

_He shrugged, diffidently, eyes cast down. "Turn round then." Alex did as he ordered, catching her lower lip between her teeth as she felt him gently easing the zip into place. _

"_There's a hook and eye thingy at the top to stop it coming undone," she told him, faintly, clenching her hands into fists as his fingers brushed against the skin of her back, her heart thudding so loudly she thought that he surely must be able to hear it. Every nerve was on fire, sparks of electricity shooting through her body at his fleeting touch. She felt the whisper of his hot breath on her skin as he leaned forward. _

"_Better?" he asked softly, the word rumbling up from deep in his chest, his voice catching slightly._

_Alex nodded, unable to speak, her hand coming up to rub away the caress of his breath on her neck, as she moved away. She knew that she couldn't look at him, knew that he would be able to see everything she still felt for him written clearly on her face._

_He cleared his throat gruffly and dug his hands deep into his pockets, looking at his watch as he did so._

"_Right. Come on then. We'd best get you to the church. You don't want to be late, do you Bolly. Not when you're the blushing bride._


	2. Feels Like Heaven

He took her elbow to steady her as he her helped her into the back of the Rolls-Royce, instantly regretting it as the feel of her silken skin sent shivers racing down his spine. He was still recovering from the overwhelming nearness of her as he'd done up her zip and there was a lump in his chest as he climbed into the car, seating himself as far away from her as he possibly could. It made no bloody difference though; her perfume filled the confined space, rendering him almost dizzy with longing. He undid the window a fraction, closing his eyes and letting the cool air wash over him. Why the fuck had he said yes to this?

Gene cast his mind back to the night in question. They'd been drunk; every last one them, even Shaz who was normally a model of good behaviour when he was around. Alex had joined them; a rare occurrence these days since she'd transferred to the Yard. If it wasn't for then fact that she was still living in Luigi's flat, they wouldn't have seen her at all any more. She'd moved on and was usually working late, or out wi' lover boy, but sometimes, if they caught her in the right mood, she'd join them, and sit at their table, getting slowly rat-arsed whilst putting the world to rights.

Sometimes, if he got drunk enough, Gene could forget that things had changed between them; could kid himself that they were still a team. He could even forget that she wasn't his any more, at least he could until he caught sight of the diamond ring on her left hand, it's sparkling presence smugly announcing that he'd missed his chance, that she was with another bloke now.

It was Shaz who'd started it all. They'd been discussing the wedding; who was invited, what colour the flowers were, all the ridiculous claptrap that women talked about when one of them was getting married. He'd been pretending not to listen, staring drunkenly at the table with his hand on his chin, savagely wishing that the whole of Oliver Ryecroft's poncey-arsed family could be stuck by lightening for dragging Alex into their toffee-nosed world.

"So who's giving you away?" Shaz had asked, ever curious about Alex's strange background.

Alex had shrugged expansively, turning her mouth into a drunken grimace. "No-one," she'd slurred. "Haven't got anybody. Give myself away."

"Oh you can't do that!" Sahz had been horrified at the very thought. "There must be someone you can ask?" She'd looked round the room and he'd sat very still, hoping that she wouldn't notice that he was still there, lurking in the corner on his own. His wish had gone un-granted as her eyes had lit up at the sight of him.

"The Guv'll do it! You've known him long enough!" Shaz had beamed with pleasure as she'd leaned across from their table. "You'll give Alex away, won't you Guv?"

He'd watched Alex's face as she'd realised what Shaz was doing; her expression of horror had said it all and his heart had twisted with a combination of shame and anguish.

"Don't be bloody ridiculous Granger!" he'd snapped furiously to cover up the pain. "DI Drake doesn't want me to give her away! Her wedding is a proper classy do; dead posh, and full of toffs like her. She won't want me there cluttering up the place." He'd gone to leave them to it, desperate to find somewhere else to sit, but Alex's hand had reached out barring his way.

"No….. Gene. You're wrong, actually. I would like you to give me away……." She'd gazed at him, her eyes huge in the dim light, but Gene had been able to see nothing but an oddly polite defiance in them. "…..please," she'd added, and with that he was lost. Alex never said please, not if she could help it, and as she'd uttered that one word, he'd been unable to do anything but nod his assent. A part of him had reasoned that if he could manage to do this one thing for her, then maybe it would mean that he was over her and he could find some solace in that realisation. He'd opened his mouth to try and talk to her about it, but he'd suddenly been engulfed by five foot, four inches of drunken, giggly blonde, hell bent on dragging him from the restaurant, and the opportunity had been lost.

Now, as he sat in the car with her, the City streets passing unseen before his blank gaze, he found himself going back over it all, the whole painful, heartbreaking mess that he'd made of things. How had he let her get so far away from him that she was marrying another man? Fear, he thought, feeling his mouth twist into a bitter scowl. Fear of losing her, and more fool you for giving into it, he berated himself, because you ended up losing her anyway.

He sneaked a glance at her, taking the opportunity to drink in the sight of her when he saw that her gaze was turned away from him as she stared from the car window. She was so beautiful, so unbearably, terrifyingly beautiful and he knew that he'd never stop feeling that way about her. He'd lost a part of his heart to her the moment she'd arrived in his life, in that bloody fur coat and ridiculously short skirt. She'd just swept in and turned his whole existence upside down, and as much as he'd fought it, he hadn't stood a bloody chance.

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_She brushed her elbow with her fingertips, feeling the goose-bumps where he'd fleetingly touched her. She swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat as she did so. She wanted to open the window, but she knew it would mess up her hair so she sat quietly, holding herself away from him, trying not to breath in the scent of him. It filled her senses; cigarettes and whisky, and a hint of spices and citrus from his aftershave, making her ache with a need that she thought she'd managed to banish long ago. She bit her lip, remembering the scent of him, fresh from the shower, the feel of his skin under her hands. Christ! Why had she asked him to do this? It had been a bloody stupid idea and she'd only done it to try and prove a point._

_They'd been at Luigi's, talking about the wedding and he'd just sat there, not saying a word, not at all bothered that she was getting married. She tried not to spend as much time with them all, now that she wasn't a part of the team any more, even though she missed them desperately, but sometimes it was impossible to resist pulling up a chair and pouring a glass of wine. Oliver had twice suggested that she'd move in with him before the wedding, but she'd refused. Luigi's was her only link with her old team at Fenchurch East, her only link with Gene, and she wasn't ready to give that up just yet._

_When Shaz had asked Gene to give her away, she'd been horrified. It wasn't Shaz's fault, she wasn't to know what had happened between them, but Alex had been mortified that he'd had been put in such an awkward position. She'd heard his sarcastic reply about toffs and she'd been hurt that he'd automatically assumed that she'd reverted to type, all Pony Club and Pimms on the lawn, just because she was marrying a Consultant Surgeon. _

_She'd suddenly realised that she did want him to be there; needed him there, if she was absolutely honest. The Ryecroft family could be more than a little overwhelming en mass. More importantly, if Gene said yes, then she'd know that he really was OK with her marrying Oliver and she'd be able to move on, in the certain knowledge that he didn't want her any more and that there really was no going back._

_She'd put her arm out to stop him leaving as she'd asked him and for one terrible moment she'd thought that he was going to refuse. _

"_Please," she'd said._

_Alex closed her eyes in shame at the memory of that one word. What choice had she given him, really, begging him like that? He'd just nodded, abruptly and then Lisa had appeared, drunk and giggly, all ready to go clubbing, and that had been that. They'd never really spoken about again, and now, here they were, on the way to her wedding._

_She risked a quick glance at him and seeing that he was staring from the window, she gazed at him, talking in the set of his shoulders, the jut of his cheekbones, the beauty of his hands as they rested on his knees. God, he was so handsome, so beautifully masculine in the rare way that some men were, without ever being aware of it and she knew, no matter what, that heart would always melt at the sight of him. It had taken a while, but she'd finally fallen under his spell, and try as she might, she'd been powerless to resist him at the party when he'd finally given her a hint about how he felt._

_After Luigi had taken the photograph, Gene had continued to hold her close and as he'd gazed at her, she'd given in to her instincts, leant forward, and kissed him. It had been only a whisper of contact, her lips brushing his, but it was all that he'd needed. He'd leaned down to murmur in her ear as he'd pulled her closer to him._

"_I can't kiss you back, Alex. Not here. Too many people." His gaze had tracked from her eyes to her mouth, making her tremble with desire. "I want to though," he'd murmured._

"_Really?" she'd replied, unsteadily._

"_Oh yes. __" He'd moved closer, pushing her back against the bar and she'd felt the length of his body pressing against hers. "__I want to d__o more than j__ust kiss you." The meaning in his silver/blue eyes had been perfectly clear and the words had tumbled from her mouth, without thought or fear of the consequences. _

"_I'm going upstairs. I'll see you there in ten minutes." She'd hardly been able to walk from the restaurant her legs had been shaking so much. He'd only managed to wait for just over five before she'd heard him knocking at the flat door. As she'd opened it, he'd taken her face in his hands and kissed her deeply, again and again. It had been an oddly tender gesture, she'd thought later, at odds with the sheer overwhelming lust that they'd felt for each other. She'd ripped his shirt open with fumbling, shaking fingers and his kisses had changed, becoming fiercer, and harder, his hands tugging at her clothes as they'd fallen onto the sofa together. _

_There'd been no attempt at finesse, the first time. They'd been too desperate for the taste and feel of each other to even shed all of their clothes. They'd just fucked, hard and fast, their harsh and ragged breathing mingling with their moans of pleasure. As he'd pushed up inside of her, she thought that she would melt with ecstasy and she'd whimpered in satisfaction, crying out as he'd made her come. He'd followed soon after, spilling into her with a grunt, clutching her to him. _

_They'd lain there, still entwined while they'd recovered and she'd been scared that she'd done the wrong thing, that she'd made the fatal mistake of letting him have her, and that now he would leave and it would be over. She'd tried to hold the memory of them both at that moment, needing something to remember him by for the next time she lay awake in her bed, tormented with need for him. _

_He hadn't moved though, continuing to hold her so tightly, his face buried in her neck and she'd heard him whisper her name. It was only the merest breath of sound, but it had given her the courage to take his hand and lead him into the bedroom to continue their journey of discovery, taking the time to explore each other slowly and thoroughly. _

_What Alex had discovered was that they were perfect together. Her body reacted to Gene's, in way that it had never had done either before or since. It was a revelation to her that he could make her feel like that, that he could be such a different man underneath all the temper and conceit. No matter what else she may feel about the way things had turned out, she would always feel privileged to have seen that side of him._

_The car slowed, coming to halt in front a huge crane that was angled across the road, blocking it completely. The driver wound down his window as one of the men at the entrance to the building site approached him. _

"_Won't be too long, mate. We're just unloading these RSJ's and then we'll be out of your way."_

_He looked in the back at Alex, grinning as he took in her wedding dress. "I promise you won't be late, sweetheart. Congratulations, anyway. You've got a nice day for it."_

_Alex smiled, wistfully. "Thanks."_

_Beside her, Gene shifted impatiently, sighing in exasperation. "Can't you go back?" he queried curtly to the driver._

"_Not now, I can't. Look at the traffic behind us."_

_Alex craned her head round and saw two huge lorries sitting patiently in the queue behind them, obviously waiting to get into the site when the crane had gone. Behind them stretched a line of cars._

"_Oh for Christ's sake" she heard Gene mutter viciously and she turned her head away, misery washing over her as she blinked back the tears that suddenly welled in her eyes. It had been clear from the minute she'd seen him in Luigi's that he was obviously regretting the decision to be involved in her wedding and she wished that she'd never asked him in the first place. She'd completely misread the depth of the new relationship that they'd somehow managed to carve out of the mess of their old one. It was her fault entirely; A __part of her needed him in her life and she just couldn't let go, not even after all this time, not even now that they'd both moved on. She sat back in her seat, worrying at a fingernail with her teeth, lost in her memories._

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He knew he'd done the wrong thing the minute the words had been uttered. Shit. Now she was angry because she thought he didn't want to be here with her. He could tell from the way she turned away from him in a huff. Ironically, nothing could be further from the truth. He wanted to be with her all the time. It never mattered where they were or what was going on, he just wanted to be where she was. He needed her in his life, more than anyone he'd ever known, and he wasn't prepared to let her go. Hence his willingness to humiliate himself, all dressed up in this ridiculous morning suit on his way to deliver her into the arms of another man.

He'd walk through fire for her. There had never been any doubt in his mind about that. He'd defend her with his life, kill any one who tried to hurt her, but ultimately it had been him that had caused her the most hurt. He could willingly take a bullet for her, but he hadn't been able to commit to her. Hadn't been able to make a life with her. Admitting to the world that he loved Alex Drake had been more frightening than the prospect of a bullet in the heart and now he was paying the price for his cowardliness.

He'd thought he'd imagined it when she'd kissed him at Chris & Shaz's engagement party, thought that he'd had far too much to drink, but when he'd seen the look in her eyes, he'd realised that it was all very real, that had Alex wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

Climbing the stairs up to her flat, unable to wait at the bar a moment longer, he'd almost convinced himself that she wouldn't open the door to him, and when she had done, he'd been overwhelmed with relief, taking her face in his hands and kissing her, as if he could tell her how he felt about her without any words. Then desire had taken over and he'd wanted her so badly that he could hardly stand. He hadn't been gentle, ripping her clothes from her, desperate for her, but she hadn't seemed to mind much as she bitten at his bare shoulder, her nails raking at his back as she'd arched against him. When he'd slid inside her for the first time, he'd thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He'd dreamed of that moment so often and now it was real; she was real, moving against him, convulsing around him as she came.

Afterwards, as he'd lain there, gasping for breath, he'd been terrified that it was over, that she'd send him away, now that she'd had him. He'd held her tightly, breathing in the scent of her, trying to imprint the feel of her incredible body on his memory, so that he'd have something to treasure on the long, lonely nights when he lay awake, wracked with longing for her.

Eyes closed, lost in the sensation of her, he'd whispered her name, and remarkably, she'd taken his hand and led him to the bedroom, where they'd begun all over again, slower and deeper this time, letting him discover everything about her. She'd had been unlike anything he'd ever experienced before and he'd been shaken to the core at how much he felt for her, how good they were together. Alex had been softer than he'd ever seen her, all the aggression and pushiness that she displayed at work had vanished to be replaced by this loving, sometimes vulnerable woman. He would treasure that for the rest of his days, the side of her character that she'd revealed to him, the trust that she'd placed in him.

He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face, wishing that he had the power to change things, wishing he'd had the courage to tell her how he felt.


	3. Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

**This chapter is much, much longer than the previous two. There was no natural break so I've posted the lot.**

**Lyrics are the property of Soft Cell**

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**What about me - well**

**I'll find someone........**

**A nice little housewife**

**Who'll give me a steady life,**

**And won't keep going off the rails……**

**Take a look in my face for the last time**

**I never knew you, you never knew me**

**Say hello, goodbye**

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Gene hung his head in shame as they waited in tense silence, remembering how Alex had lost her air of haunted sadness when they'd been together. Instead she'd shone with happiness, becoming even more beautiful to him. And what did you do with that happiness, he asked himself, mockingly. You buggered it all up, just like you did when you were married.

He scowled fiercely, forcing himself to confront his memories. Today of all days he should be honest with himself about the mess he'd made of some aspects of his life. He tugged at his uncomfortably tight collar; sodding, bloody cravat. He hadn't even been dressed up like this for his own damn wedding. A new suit from Burtons had been good enough back then. Twenty bloody years ago; it felt like another life time. It had certainly been a lot less complicated. He'd known exactly who and what he was and had lived his life accordingly. He'd not been a perfect husband, but then no-one in his line of work was really. There were far too many temptations out there, but he'd always known where to draw the line, nothing too serious and certainly nothing that would get back to his wife.

Marion had seemed happy enough. True they'd never had managed to have a child of their own and he knew that it had upset her for many years, but she'd filled the house with kids anyway. He hadn't really minded. He'd worked long hours and it had made her happy. Whenever he'd come home from work during the day, there'd be at least half a dozen of them, if not more, laughing and playing or making cakes with her in the kitchen.

Marion's two sisters had seven between them, and when they'd grown-up enough to go to school, there'd been Joan's three from next-door, and then, little Paul Braithwaite from over the road, who's mam had died when he was two, and his dad had been glad of the help. Paul's dad been glad of other things too, Gene had finally realised years later as he'd sat in the café round the corner from the Police Station and listened to Marion explain why she was leaving him. She'd been having an affair with Howard Braithwaite for years it would seem and now the time had come for her to make a new life for herself with him.

"I've lived in your shadow for too long for too long, Gene and I'm tired of it. Howard loves me, really loves me and more importantly, he likes me. He listens to me, he wants to be a part of my life."

In desperation, he'd latched on to the one phrase that he'd been able to understand. "_I_ like you!" he'd hissed in exasperated disbelief. She'd laughed then, although not unkindly. "I know you do, but it's not enough any more. You like me because I'm always there for you, whenever you choose to come home to me. I cook and clean for you, and I put up with all your nonsense, but I'm not prepared to go on living like that, Gene. Liking me isn't enough any more."

He'd sat there, unable to think of anything else to say. He'd known that he should tell her he loved her, but he couldn't; he didn't, hadn't done for years. They'd lived a parallel existence for a long while now, albeit without any obvious rancour on her part. He hadn't even imagined that things have got so bad that she would leave him. They'd still been having sex, for God's sake; not often, but sometimes. It hadn't set the world on fire, but it had been good enough; the sort of soft, comfortable sex you have with someone you've known for a long time.

"So you don't love me then?" he'd asked her, wanting to know for sure.

"Marion had shaken her head regretfully. "No, I don't, not any more, but then you don't love me either, do you? We lost that a long time ago. Let's face it, love, we only still like each other because we've gone way past the hating stage by now."

"I've never hated you!" he'd retorted hotly, suddenly aware of the curious gaze of the other customers. She'd raised her eyebrows at him ironically

"Really? Well, lucky you. I've certainly hated you at times."

"When?" he'd asked incredulously, unable to believe that she'd never told him any of this before.

"Every time you slept with someone else." she'd replied, evenly, but he'd seen her teacup tremble as she picked it up to take a sip. "The first time you were unfaithful, I thought my world had ended. I got over it, sorted myself out, but there was always another woman, somewhere, wasn't there Gene? You'd go months at a time, trying to be a good husband, but you just couldn't resist. In the end it was easier to stop caring about what you were up to. Once I'd done that, I could find myself someone else; someone who wants me for who I am, not what I am."

With that, she'd left him, crossing the road to where Howard was waiting for her in the safety of his car. Gene had sat there for what seemed to be hours, staring into his tea before he'd got the call on his radio. Something about a jewellery raid gone wrong. He'd raced to the scene only to be told that Sam's car had gone in to the river and that there was no trace of him.

He'd put in for a transfer immediately after the memorial service. He couldn't stay in Manchester a minute longer. Sam was dead, Marion was happily shacked- up in Whitby with Howard, and Gene had found it impossible to maintain his equilibrium now that his life was in tatters. He'd chosen London because it was big enough to lose himself in, big enough for him to disappear from everyone's view; a city full of thousands of lost souls, all striving for some sort of oblivion. His, as always, had come in the form of drink and women and now that he'd lost Alex, he'd seen no reason not to go back to his old ways. There was always a distraction if you searched hard enough.

He looked over at Alex again, watching as she bit at her fingernail, a faint frown on her face. He wound the window down further, desperate to escape the scent of her. All he could think about was the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair, the curve of her body nestled against his as he'd woken early in the mornings, the way she'd felt in his arms as he'd moved in her.....

"Jesus Christ! How much longer is this going to take, you useless twats!" Gene roared from the window of the car, unleashing the full force of his temper on the hapless builders. They shrugged, gesturing to lorry that was still half full of steel girders and he rubbed his hands across his face, feeling as though he was going mad.

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_Alex jumped when he shouted, startled by the fury in his voice. She watched as he struggled to contain his temper, tentatively reaching out to rest her hand on his arm, before thinking the better of it and returning her hand to her lap. The last thing he'd want was her fusing over him. Maybe that was her problem. She'd always tried to take care of the men she'd got involved with, even when they didn't want her to, when all she really wanted was for them to look after her. _

_Peter had been happy with it at first. He'd been totally disorganised, living a typically penniless existence as he struggled his way through university. Alex had met him at a student party thrown by a mutual friend and taken him under her wing. Right from the start of their relationship, she'd organised him, looked after him, and stupidly believed that she'd fallen in love with him. Accidentally getting pregnant hadn't been such a wise move, but she'd really thought that everything would be OK, that they'd manage somehow. She'd told herself that she'd just have to try and fit motherhood in with her studies and a burgeoning career in the police, whilst Peter continued to develop the novel that he was convinced would make him a household name. _

_Things had continued that way for a while after Molly was born. She'd earned the money and paid all the bills, made all the practical decisions about their lives and he'd just drifted about being "creative" as he put it, which usually seemed to involve getting drunk in a pub in Soho somewhere. She'd tried not to mind too much, but she'd been bitterly disappointed in the way her marriage was turning out. When she'd suggested that they move out of their cramped little flat in Camden and perhaps find somewhere more child-friendly, Peter had been horrified. He'd packed his bags and left the next day, declaring that she stifled him. _

"_You're restricting my creative energy, Alex. I can't be who I am with all your nagging and I can't work with a crying baby around me all the time."_

_She'd left it a day before trying to find him to beg him to reconsider, thinking that maybe they could still stay in Camden, but rent a bigger flat. She would ask Evan to help them with the cost of it. He didn't like Peter, but he wouldn't want to see her unhappy. She'd tracked her wayward husband down to a loft in Soho where he was supposedly helping an old university friend write the script for a commercial, but instead she'd found him in bed with some skinny young art student, both of them utterly unrepentant at being caught. _

_She'd divorced him and moved on with her life, although not without bearing the emotional scars of his rejection. He made her feel boring and middle-aged when in reality she'd only been in her early twenties. There'd been other men after Peter, but none of them had wanted to tie themselves down to a single mother and her young child. Her one hope, her one chance at creating the family unit that she so desperately craved, had been Richard, a university lecturer that she'd met when he'd given a series of talks on the latest developments in psychological profiling _

_He'd got so serious about her that he'd suggested that she and Molly move in with him, but within days of asking her, he'd also announced that he'd been offered a job at Edinburgh University. When Alex had expressed her dismay at such a move, he'd been shocked that she wasn't as delighted as he was. He couldn't see that she had Molly to consider._

"_I can't just move her to Scotland, Richard. She's settled in school. Not only that, her father has actually begun to develop some sort of decent relationship with her for the first time in her life and now you're asking me to take all that away from her." They'd argued long into the night and finally Richard had delivered his ultimatum; she came with him to Edinburgh or their relationship was over. There had been no contest. Alex had stayed in London and discovered that when it came down to it, she never really loved Richard in the first place. She'd loved the sense of security that he'd given her, that was all, not him._

_So she'd settled for being resolutely single, hiding her disappointment under the front of a fiercely independent career woman. There'd been a few flings here and there, none of them serious or even very meaningful. They'd been entirely about sex and nothing else, and she'd been very careful to conceal any hint of her behaviour from her daughter. It was better that way, but it didn't stop her from feeling lonely. Since her parents had died, she'd always felt that she was a burden, wanted but unwanted at the same time. Evan had been happy to bring her up, but her presence had stopped him from leading the life he should have had. He'd sacrificed his personal life for her. She now knew why he'd done it; he was trying to makes amends for her parents deaths, but strangely, his acceptance of her into his life had only made her feel more alone. It had been the same with most of the men in her life. With each of them, she'd strived to re-create the happy family that she'd been a part of for such a brief time, but all she'd succeeded in doing was driving them away._

_Foolishly, she'd done exactly the same thing with Gene, lulled into a false sense of security by how perfect everything had been between them for those blissful few months. Somehow, they'd managed to hide their relationship from the rest of then team, going to great lengths not be seen leaving Luigi's together, let alone going upstairs to her flat. Gene had been worried about how things would be viewed by their superiors, and had insisted that they kept things quiet. Alex had been fine about that; it was a reasonable enough request and anyway, she'd been too dizzy with love to think of anything else. _

_It was all so easy; they'd already done the getting to know each other part having spent nearly a year working together and they just seemed to go from strength to strength as a couple. In no time at all, Alex found that her wardrobe was full of Gene's clothes, his razor and toothbrush were a permanent feature in her bathroom cabinet, and they were spending every night together. _

_The beginning of the end of it all had come about on a rainy Saturday morning in her flat. Gene had been looking for a clean shirt, muttering about what a waste of time it was to have to go home and do some laundry, as he'd struggled to see what was in the wardrobe. _

"_You've got too many damn clothes, Bolly." he'd told her in exasperation. "I can't find anything in here and there's no-where for me to put my stuff."_

_She'd laughed, watching him as she'd lazily stretched herself out naked on the bed, sated and glowing from a night of incredible sex. "Well maybe we should ask Luigi to get us another wardrobe so that we could have one each? Let's face it, Gene, most your clothes must be here by now. It doesn't make any sense for you to keep going home to get clean ones." _

_He'd looked over at her with narrowed eyes, his mouth pushed into a considering pout._

"_What? Are you saying what I think you're saying, Alex?"_

_Alex had nodded shyly, smiling up at him. "Yes, I suppose I am. You spend all your time here anyway. Move in with me, Gene. I'm tired of sneaking around. We're both adults, so why don't we make it official and let everyone know that we're together? Someone is going to work out what's going on between us at some point, you know."_

_As soon as she'd said the words she'd know it was the wrong thing to have done. He'd continued to stare at her with such an odd expression on his face as though he suddenly didn't recognise her, before disappearing into the sitting room to watch the TV without giving her an answer. He'd been withdrawn and edgy with her from then on and slowly but surely over the course of the next few days, the majority of his things found they way back to his flat and he started to spend more time down in the bar with the lads. _

_She was an idiot to have even thought that he would want someone like her. She was too complicated, too damaged by her past experiences, and if there was one thing that a man as strong and as self-reliant as Gene didn't want, it was a complicated personal life. Especially not with someone who wanted to be looked after, and if she was honest with herself, sometimes she needed him to do just that. She was exhausted by having to be strong all the time and Gene, without even being aware of how much it meant to her, had effortlessly wrapped her in his arms and made everything OK for a short while. It wasn't as if he'd ever told her how he felt anyway. She'd just assumed that he felt the same as she did and she'd tried so hard to show him that she loved him, but evidently he didn't feel the same way. _

_She wondered if she should tell him how much he meant to her, but it had seemed pointless when he'd made it so clear that he didn't want to move in. She would have only embarrassed herself further and made herself even more vulnerable to being hurt. In all honesty, she'd been deluding herself in thinking that they had any sort of future together. _

_Self preservation had kicked in, alongside the raw disbelief that he could treat her like that and she'd decided to put him out of his misery by being the one to end it. That way, she could take the blame and maybe he'd find the whole thing easier to deal with it if he didn't feel so guilty. She'd sat him down and told him that it was over, spinning some stupid excuse about getting carried away and how probably it was best that they went back to just being friends. She hadn't managed it that well and she knew that the hurt had shown in her eyes as she'd haltingly released him from any further obligation to her. He'd seemed relieved when she'd finished speaking, sighing deeply as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. _

_She'd tried so hard to rebuild what they'd had before, but it hurt so bloody much. She felt so lonely that sometimes at night her whole body ached with longing, despite that fact that more often than not these days, Oliver stayed over. That was wrong, wasn't it? Laying awake in the dark, yearning for another man while the one you had slept peacefully beside you? The knot in her stomach twisted sharply as she tried to push the thought away. Stop it! Stop it Alex. You're getting married. This what you want. Just stop all the nonsense, she told herself severely._

_Alex let out a ragged breath of panic as the crane began to inch it's way forward past the now empty lorry, and the car began to move again, bringing her ever nearer to becoming Oliver's wife ._

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He heard the sigh of relief that heaved from her as the car resumed its journey and turned his face away once more. She looked so nervous that he wanted to reach out and touch her, take her hand in his, but he stopped himself. That was the last thing she'd want, him fussing round her. Trouble was he couldn't help himself. She looked so lost sometimes that he just wanted to take care of her, to wrap her in his arms, but it was clear that she didn't need him to do that. She was so fiercely independent she made him feel inadequate most of the time. When she'd suggested that he move in with her, he'd been shocked, unable to do much more than ask her to confirm what she'd just asked him. It was what he'd been hoping for ever since they'd started seeing each other; to be able share his life with her, to have her to turn to for comfort when the pressure of being "The Guv" became almost overwhelming. He'd hardly dared to believe that they could have been so good together but they were, and he'd felt like the luckiest bastard on the face of the earth.

As she'd lain there, stretched out naked on the bed; the most gorgeous, incredible woman he'd ever known, smiling up at him and waiting for his answer, he'd looked at her, _really_ looked at her, seeing, not just the Alex that he was in love with, but the whole of her. The posh, privately-educated psychologist who was, in all honesty, totally out of his league. How could she possibly want to to get involved with with him? He was too old and set in his ways and certainly Alex wouldn't want the complications that came with living with a man as damaged and emotionally guarded as he was. He'd insisted that they keep their relationship under wraps for the time being as he'd been worried about how the team would react when they found out. No-one in their right mind would think that they could have ever worked as couple. They were from completely different backgrounds and she'd have got bored with him soon, he knew she would. He'd been kidding himself in thinking that they had any sort of future together

He'd glanced over at their respective bedside tables. His had contained a packet of fags and The Racing Post, while hers held a file of notes from a psychology lecture and a book by some poncey-arsed Russian writer. She'd been going to the opera on Friday night while he went out with lads for a curry, and the last time they'd been out together, she'd taken him see some incomprehensible French film and he'd fallen asleep within the first five minutes.

He'd been gripped by the sudden paralysing terror that once he'd made a life with her, made himself that vulnerable to hurt, then inevitably, she would leave him and he would have to begin all over again, on his own once more. He'd thought about facing the lads; dealing with all the station gossip. Everyone would know that Gene Hunt had let another woman slip through his fingers. He'd known he couldn't handle that; he wasn't strong enough to face being a failure again.

So he'd said nothing, intending to try and talk to her about his fears when he'd worked them all out in his own mind, but she'd gone all cold on him. He knew that he'd hurt her by ignoring her suggestion, but somehow, he just hadn't been able to tell her how he felt. He'd tried to give her some breathing space, spending a bit more time with the lads, moving some of his clothes back to his place, in case she'd thought that he'd pushed her into asking him to move in by leaving his things all over her flat.

After all, she'd never really told him how she felt, had she? She'd never said that she loved him. Admittedly, he'd never said it to her either, but he'd tried to show her how he felt, tried to let her know that she was loved. He'd thought that maybe he should tell her, but he was too scared of her reaction in the light of her sudden coldness. Anyway, he reasoned, desperately trying to justify how he was behaving, what if her coldness wasn't because he'd upset her, but because she was having second thoughts?

The more confused he'd become, the harder it was to talk to her and before he'd plucked up the courage, she'd sat him down and told him that the whole thing had been a huge mistake. They were better off as friends, nothing more than that. He'd seen the hurt in her eyes as she'd said it and he'd felt his heart shatter, along with all his hopes for the future, hardly able to look at her for fear that she would see the despair in his eyes. When she'd reassured him that she wanted to remain friends, he'd been so pathetically grateful that he'd let out all his pent-up breath in a desperate sigh of relief. He could remember how much his chest had hurt as he'd done so and he'd had to down his whisky in one hurried glup.

He'd spent every day since then in a state of anguished longing, grateful for every glance or friendly word that she threw his way, trying his best to be casual about it all, even though his whole body ached for her. He'd tried moving on; filling his bed with a string of nameless, faceless women who'd done nothing to ease the pain in his heart. It had only been a few weeks later that Alex had transferred to Scotland Yard, and soon after that she'd told him that she'd met someone else.

All too soon, Oliver Ryecroft, toff, surgeon and all-round wanker had become a permanent feature in her life. Fucking nobby posh bastard. He knew that he should have gone to the hospital to interview that bloody witness himself. Then she'd have never met him and he wouldn't feel his guts corrode with hatred every time she mentioned him. Sometimes, Ryecroft came to join her for a drink in Luigi's or Gene saw him collecting her from the flat, and each time, he had to physically restrain himself from smashing the smug bastard's face into the nearest brick wall.

Alex having a serious boyfriend had upset the delicate balance that they'd achieved for a while, and so Gene had tried to even things up by getting involved with one of the typists from the station. Lisa was young and blonde with a tight little arse and a great pair of tits, which inevitably, had only enhanced his reputation with the lads. She was also available and undemanding, and ultimately, that was all that mattered really. Unfortunately, Lisa also liked nightclubs where they played too-loud music by bands he'd never heard of. She liked drinking and dancing and being shagged seven ways 'til Sunday when she arrived at his flat in the early hours. If he was totally honest with himself, Lisa was exhausting. She made him feel old and all too aware that time was running out.

It mildly surprised him that he still had something about him that made him attractive to girls like her. Lisa was the latest in a long line of pretty, young things that had fallen for his grudging charm and rough exterior. He'd given up trying to work out what it was that made them weak at the knees. To be honest, he'd stopped thinking or feeling at all after Alex had gone from his life; he just acted these days; acted interested, acted happy, acted his sodding socks off. It paid off, though. One by one, they all fell into his bed, their skilful hands and hot mouths all over him, moaning with delight while he pretended that he actually gave a damn as he fucked them, and more importantly himself, into oblivion.

It was the same with Lisa, even though she'd been on the scene for a good few months now. He didn't want her to become a part of his life in any way, he just wanted the feel of another body in his bed, warm flesh to take away the hurt when the pretence of it all became too much. Truth was, he was lonely; achingly desperately lonely. He hadn't even felt this level of pain when Marion had left him, and he had no idea what to do about it any more. He'd always thought that describing someone as "heartbroken" was just ridiculous nonsense taken from a Mills & Boon novel, but these days he understood all too well that it really did exisit. His heart was broken; he was broken. Nothing in his life felt the way it should any more and he'd lost all hope of things ever being any different.

"Look at me" one silly tart had said to him. "Look at me when you come." He'd taken no notice of her, continuing to keep his eyes tightly shut as he screwed her good and hard. When she'd persisted, he'd lost both his stroke and his temper.

"I don't want to look at you!" he'd roared in fury, pulling away from her and flinging himself out of bed.

"Why not?" she'd pouted, trying to play it cute and batting her eyelashes.

"Because it's not you I want to see in my bed," he replied with brutal coldness, unreasonably pleased to see tears well up in her eyes. Silly cow, he'd thought viciously. Why couldn't she just shut up and get on wi' it? He didn't want to talk, didn't want to look at her, he just wanted to lose himself in her hot, tight flesh and to forget everything for an instant as he let go. He'd grabbed her clothes and thrown them on the bed. "Get dressed and bugger off" he'd growled, too angry to even offer to call a taxi.

"Why? What did I do wrong?" she'd asked him, sniffing back the tears.

"Nothing" he'd snapped as the aching misery swamped him once more. "You're just not her."

Gene closed his eyes in pain as the car crossed the junction from Giltspur Street onto West Smithfield and he caught a glimpse of the square stone tower of the church from behind the other hospital buildings.

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**To be continued.**

**Hang in there with the retrospective angst. Things should get going in the next chapter. **

**NB: I have no idea if you can see the tower of St Bartholomew the Less from West Smithfield in reality, but for the purposes of this fic, you can.**


	4. Can't Get Used to Losing You

**It was my intention when this first started out, that it would be a one-shot, possibly two chapters at the very most, but they keep "talking" me and so it gets longer and more convoluted with every paragraph that I write.**

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_Alex felt sick as the car rounded the curve of West Smithfield. Up ahead, waiting on the pavement, in their pale pink bridesmaids dresses were Shaz and Kathy, and behind them, hovering in the archway that led through the church, was Oliver's mother._

A_lex closed her eyes in irritation. Why couldn't she have stayed inside the church? That was the last thing she wanted, Celia fussing and fretting round her as she spent her last few moments with Gene. The thought pulled her up sharp and her eyes snapped open in shock. Shit. That wasn't what she was supposed to be thinking. She glanced over at him, suddenly furious that he was sitting there so calmly, eyes closed, looking for all the world as though he was having a quick nap before dinner. Didn't he realise what was happening? Didn't he care? He opened his eyes the car slowed down, looking over at her and smiling brightly._

"_All ready then, Bolly?" _

_Alex stared at him, the lump in her throat so big she could hardly breathe. She leaned forward to speak to the driver. _

"_Can you pull up round the corner, please?....I just need a minute."_

_The driver shrugged. "Anything you say, Miss," and he swung the car left onto Long Lane, pulling slowly to halt at the kerb._

_She sat still, her hands clutching the stems of her bouquet so tightly they dug into the flesh of palms. Think, Alex, she told herself. Rationalise this. It's just last minute nerves, that's all. The analytical part of her mind ran through her fiancé's good points one by one as her heart raced so fast she thought it would burst. Oliver, think about Oliver. He's everything you need. He's kind, handsome and he takes care of you.__Everything she told herself was true. Oliver Ryecroft was a good catch and she should be grateful that he wanted to be her husband, despite her initial ambivalence towards him when they'd first met._

_After Gene had moved out, she'd been devastated. She'd not even been that heartbroken when Peter had left her. She felt shattered inside, as though her life would never be the same again and she didn't even know where to begin to put it right. __She'd started by transferring to Scotland Yard, thinking that maybe Gene would see what he was missing if she wasn't around so much any more. The last case she'd dealt with before the move had involved going to St Bart's to interview a witness and it was there that she'd met Oliver. She hadn't been interested in him at all at first, but he'd persisted and after a few weeks of hearing the lads talk about Gene shagging a seemingly endless stream of nubile young women, she'd given in and accepted Oliver's offer of dinner.__She fully admitted to herself she'd only done it to see if she could make Gene jealous; if the though of her with another man would finally push him into a reaction. _

_It hadn't worked of course. He wasn't bothered in the slightest and to make matters worse, he'd started seeing that Lisa woman. Well, to be brutally honest, she was more of a girl than a woman; young enough to be his daughter, for God's sake, not to mention the fact that she was common as muck and twice as thick; all long blonde hair and cleavage and a perfect little body. Alex hated her; loathed the way she wrapped herself around Gene, batting her eyelashes and giggling at everything he said. She had to grit her teeth so tightly that they hurt whenever she saw her, had to restrain herself from throwing something at the silly little cow as she wiggled her pert little bottom across the floor to perch daintily on a bar stool next to Gene. How could he prefer that to her? How bloody DARE he prefer that to her!_

"_Why do you always go out with bimbos, Gene?" she'd asked him one night, barely managing to keep the vitriol from her voice as she'd watched Lisa giggling with the other typists at the bar._

_He'd sniffed, pushing his mouth into that infuriatingly sexy pout, before fixing her with a sharp silver/blue stare. _

"_Same reason you're going out wi' a toff, Bolly. S'less complicated. You know exactly what you're getting. No nasty surprises, no unrealistic expectations." He'd nodded in the direction of the door. "Speaking of which, your bloke's here ...... 'night Bols," and with that he'd walked over to stand next to Lisa, sliding a proprietorial hand over the curve of her arse as he'd signalled at Luigi for his bill with the other._

_Alex had thought that she would die at that moment, consumed with a jealously so strong that it made her shake. She'd made her excuses to Oliver, pleading a headache and escaping to the solitude of her flat, where she'd lain awake for hours, sobbing until her throat ached and her eyes were so puffy she hardly see. As the cold light of dawn had broken, she'd realised that it was a useless waste of her time, constantly yearning for a man she couldn't have, and so she'd made up her mind to settle for the one who'd made it perfectly clear that he wanted her. If she was going to be stuck in this existence, surely it was better to be stuck with someone than on her own for all time? _

_She'd given up hope of ever getting back. There'd been a night, a few months back when she'd been crippled by the pain in her head, unable even to stand-up without crying. The voices had come in waves, making her sob in agony, but she'd been able to see nothing, no flashes from her real time and in the end, through the blinding waves of pain, a voice had pronounced, "It's no good. She's gone," and everything had stopped; the voices, the hospital noises, the pain. All had vanished as though someone had thrown a switch. _

_She'd stayed where she was, curled up on the sofa for hours, until Gene had come to find her, alerted by her new team about her unexplained absence from work. He'd stayed with her for hours, even though she wasn't his responsibility any more, sitting by her side in brooding silence as she'd sobbed with grief for her lost life and her lost child. He'd left without a word when Oliver had arrived and after an brief enquiry about her state of mind the next day as he'd passed her in the door way of Luigi's, he'd said nothing further about it, dismissing her halting thanks with a brusque grimace. _

_The truth of it all was, she was lonely; achingly, miserably lonely and Oliver gave her the security that she longed for, even if it was only a pale shadow of how Gene had made her feel. When Oliver had proposed, one evening in Luigi's, it had made sense to say yes. She'd been feeling miserable, sick to her stomach at the sight of Gene and Lisa leaving the bar with their arms wrapped round each other and she'd desperately wanted to belong to someone, to fit in to someone's else's life. _

_After that, it had all been so easy just to let herself get swept along with what Oliver wanted, and the Ryecroft family had welcomed her with open arms. Oliver's father, Henry was charming, if a little pompous, as befitted a distinguished retired surgeon and his mother, Celia, had been delighted that her son had found himself someone special at last. _

_The only downside to everything had been that as Oliver was her only child, there was no way that she was going to let him get away with a quiet wedding as Alex had originally suggested. In no time at all, Alex had found herself caught up in wedding preparations, powerless to resist Celia's formidable organisational skills. She'd been more than a little irked to find that Alex was a divorcee and that had posed a problem for a while until she'd managed to find a vicar who would agree to marry them._

_Alex had let Celia have her own way about most of the details. She really couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to debate the merits of colour schemes and table decorations. The only two things that Alex had really dug her heels in about were the timing of it all and the venue. The wedding needed to take place the sooner the better as far as she'd been concerned, giving her less time to worry if she was doing the right thing or not. As for the venue itself, Alex had taken one look at the church of St Bartholomew the Great and utterly refused to consider getting married there. _

"_It's far too big." she'd told Celia, firmly. "I don't have any family coming to the wedding, just a few friends and colleagues and they'll get lost in this huge space." In truth, she felt deeply uneasy at how much of a pantomime this wedding seemed to turning into, with dozens of distant Ryecroft relatives on the guest list, morning suits, bridesmaids, and fittings for a traditional, full-length wedding dress. Not what Alex had imagined when she accepted Oliver's proposal. She'd been thinking more along the lines of a registry office and very few guests._

"_But it's a family tradition! Our family weddings have always been in the hospital church!" Celia had protested, evidently unnerved by just how mutinous her usually pliant future daughter-in-law was being. "Henry and I got married here" _

_Alex had smiled at her with icy politeness. "Well, Oliver and I won't," and she'd turned and marched across the courtyard to the other hospital church, St Bartholomew the Less, opening the heavy wooden door and peering inside. _

"_This is perfect." Alex had announced, looking around at the tiny church with its unusual octagonal shape. She'd watched Celia open her mouth to disagree, just as Oliver had stepped in. "Just leave it, Mother." he'd murmured, not realising that Alex could hear him. "This is fine. Alex is stressed enough about this wedding as it is. I think she's upset that her family won't be there. At least I'm still getting married at Barts. Let Alex have what she wants. After all it is her big day and I want everything to be perfect for her." _

_Typical Oliver; always there, smoothing out any problems, making sure that everything was just as she wanted it. He treated her as though she was some sort of precious jewel; loving her, treasuring her, falling over himself to do as she wanted, ever solicitous to her wants and needs. He was the same in bed: attentive, worshipping, concerned only for her pleasure. _

_In theory, he was every woman's dream come true, but not hers it would seem, because for all his attention and care, Oliver Ryecroft had never made her come. That only happened if she helped herself along with her fingers, or even worse, closed her eyes and fantasised about Gene. She'd only done the latter twice. It made her feel guilty and, when the afterglow of her orgasm had faded, even less satisfied than if she hadn't done it in the first place._

_All the ingredients were there with Oliver; he was darkly handsome with a hard, masculine physique and in theory, he was good lover, but the chemistry just didn't happen between them. Not from her point of view anyway. Oliver seemed to be perfectly happy, handling her as carefully as if she was some delicate, innocent little flower. The one time Alex had dared to let go and growl "Fuck me, Oliver", as she'd tangled her hands roughly in his hair, he'd been shocked, asking her reprovingly if she'd had too much to drink. Oliver never fucked her; he made love to her and sometimes Alex wanted to scream, not with ecstasy but with frustration. _

_Sex with Gene had been exactly like the man himself; raw, uncompromising and full of passion, leaving Alex shattered and breathless, aching and sated and yet still yearning for more. He'd consumed her, possessed her and she knew that she would never experience anything that intense again._

_They had been utterly instinctive together, full of pure animal passion and Alex had felt more gloriously filthy and horny than she'd ever felt in her life before. She'd revelled in the way her body had reacted to his, how she'd been able to make him beg for her as she'd teased him with her mouth and hands. The way she'd begged for him in return as he'd transformed her from a self-possessed woman, well in control of her emotions, into a trembling, incoherent wreck who could think of nothing else but the feel of him deep inside her, crying his name as she came. He'd been like a drug, bringing her to her peak again and again, effortlessly and expertly, in a way that Oliver, for all his diligence and care, had never been able to achieve._

_She trembled as a hot shiver of remembered lust swept over her, closing her eyes once more as she tried to force all thoughts of Gene from her mind. Easier said than done though, with him sitting less than a metre away and her whole body yearning for his touch. Get a grip, Alex, she told herself fiercely. Oliver is your one chance at being happy in this place. Stop being so bloody stupid. _

_She opened her eyes again, letting out a shaky breath as she turned to Gene. "Sorry," she told him, breathlessly. "I just feel a bit sick."_

"_Oh yes?" he queried, his expression deadpan as his eyes dropped from her face to her abdomen. "I wondered what all the rush to get married was about. Your dress have got too tight then, if you'd left it any longer?"_

_Alex stared at him uncomprehendingly for a second, before realising just what he meant._

_"No, it's nothing like that! Christ, Gene. I made that mistake once. I'm not stupid enough to make it again!"_

_She jumped as there was a knock on the car window. Looking round, she saw Celia's face peering in at her. "Oh for fuck's sake. That's all I need. Oliver's bloody mother nagging at me," she muttered and failed to notice that Gene smiled, albeit very faintly, for the first time that morning._

"_Alex? What's going on? Are you OK?"_

_Alex pressed the button to slide the window open enough to be able to speak to her. "I'm fine, Celia. Just a bit shaky that's all. I didn't have any breakfast."_

"_Well, you'd best hurry up. Everyone's waiting for you, you know." Celia tutted in exasperation as Alex held up a trembling hand to warn her off._

"_Yes, OK… I know. I just need a minute….please."_

"_Do you know how late you are already, Alex? As you are well aware, the photographs will take a long time and if we're not careful, it'll have a knock-on effect on the food for the reception and then it'll all be ruined….." Celia Ryecroft broke off as Gene leaned over towards the window._

"_Listen luv, Alex said she needs a minute, so bloody well do her the courtesy of buggering off and leaving her alone!" _

_He jammed his finger down hard on the window button, cutting off Celia's squawks of outrage. Alex was relieved that she didn't have to listen to her any more, but she was suddenly furious with Gene for being so rude. He'd never met Oliver's family and for some reason it had been important to her that they liked him, that they formed a good impression of the man who was such an important part of her life. _

"_You know you really can be such a foul-mouthed, bloody yob at times!I can't believe you just did that! " Alex glared at Gene, letting all her worry twist its way out disguised as anger and frustration. _

_Gene gave her a sulkily, dismissive shrug. _

"_And I can't believe that woman is going to be your mother-in-law. Still, you always were a glutton for punishment. You got all friendly with that poisonous bitch, Caroline Price. You know Bolly, for all your psychology bollocks, you're still no bloody judge of character." He stared at her challengingly, his eyes narrowed into glittering silver shards. Alex watched him, his whole body full of tension, his mouth twisted into a grimace of disapproval as he waited for her to speak._

_She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears as she looked away from him, not wanting him to see her cry, bitterly regretting the fact that they were suddenly so far apart, that once again he thought she was a toffee-nosed, stuck-up bitch._

"_What's the matter now? You having second thoughts, or what?" he snapped, heaving a sigh of frustration as she didn't reply. "Well? Come on, Bolly! As much as it pains me to admit it, that old boot is right. We can't sit here all bloody day."_

_He doesn't want you, she told herself, but Oliver does. You've made the right choice, Alex. She turned back to face him, her face resolute. _

"_No, you're right, we can't. I'm just scared that's all. I needn't be though. Oliver is a good man." _

"_Yes, he is." She watched him glance down at his hands, flexing his fingers, before looking back at her once more, his expression unreadable._

"_And he loves me" she continued, although for the life of her she didn't know why she needed to tell Gene this. Maybe if she said it out loud she'd feel less scared about becoming Oliver's wife._

_He nodded, just the once, his gaze dropping from hers again. _

"_Yes, he does."_

_She waited for him to say something else, but he didn't, instead he shifted in his seat slightly, angling himself away from her once more and staring out of the window at the passers-by._

_After a moment, Alex leaned forward and spoke briskly to the driver. "Right. That's all sorted then….. Let's go." Honestly, what had she been expecting? That Gene would suddenly declare his undying love for her and plead with her not to marry Oliver? In her dreams, maybe, but this was as real as her world got and the hard truth was that Gene didn't want her._

"_Right you are, Miss." The driver turned the Rolls around and pulled back round the corner to the entrance, before getting out and holding the door open for her. Gene stood back and waited silently in the shadow of the archway as Shaz and Kathy straightened out the skirts of her dress and patted her hair back into place, giggling and chattering non-stop as they did so. _

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Gene felt the car slowing down as it swept around the wide curve of West Smithfield and forced a smile onto his face as he opened his eyes.

"All ready then, Bolly?" he asked her, cringing inwardly at the forced brightness of his tone.

To his consternation, she just stared at him for a moment, before leaning forward and asking the driver to pull round the corner.

He watched warily, although she said nothing more, instead sitting motionless, her hands clenched so tightly round the stems of her bouquet that he could see her knuckles turn white. After a while, a deep shiver ran through her whole body, her cheeks flushing and a pulse beating wildly at her throat. She looked so desirable that he longed to kiss her, remembering the way she'd shivered like that in his arms as he'd made her come, over and over again.

Sex with Alex had been incredible; there was no other way to describe it. Fiercely passionate, and yet tender and loving at the same time; a meeting of minds as well as bodies. He'd been with many other women but he'd never felt such connection to anyone before, instinctively knowing just how to please her. He'd know exactly how to make her beg for more as he'd pleasured her with his mouth and fingers, claiming her as his own as he'd sheathed himself inside her completely, urging deeper and deeper until she was whimpering and almost incoherent with desire.

In return, she'd driven him wild, making him beg for her, desperate to be inside her, her name torn from his throat as he came. She consumed him, bewitched him, and he knew that he would never find anyone like her again, that she would haunt his dreams until his dying day. She opened her eyes and he held his breath. Maybe she'd changed her mind? Maybe she'd realised that it was him she wanted and not that bastard Ryecroft.

"Sorry" she said breathlessly. "I just feel a bit sick."

He felt a stab of jealousy in his guts, so painful that he had to bite the inside of his cheek not let it show on his face. So that explained the hastily arranged wedding. She was up the duff. He didn't know which scenario hurt the most. That perhaps she was marrying just for the sake of the child or that Ryecroft would have it all; Alex, and a child as well, to complete the picture of domestic bliss.

"Oh yes? I wondered what all the rush to get married was about. Your dress have got too tight then, if you'd left it any longer?"

The vicious retort was uttered before he could stop himself and he hated himself for hurting her, even though Alex's anguished rebuke made him sag with the relief of realising she wasn't pregnant after all. Alex didn't even notice, she was too busy dealing with the arrival of her future mother-in-law. He felt himself smile as he heard her swear; so not everything about this marriage was perfect. Alex didn't like Ryecroft's mother. Gene felt unreasonably pleased about that for some reason as he leant over to give the bossy old trout a piece of his mind for upsetting Alex.

It didn't get the reaction he'd hoped for, though. Alex was furious with him for being so rude and he'd felt his temper flare suddenly, fucked-off that he'd bothered to stand up for her and she'd repaid him by slapping him down again. He really had lost her; clearly she was a fully paid-up member of the silver-spoon brigade now, all bridge parties and charity committees. He couldn't believe he'd actually been foolish enough to think that she might change her mind. Well, sod her, then.

"What's the matter now? You having second thoughts, or what?" he snapped, heaving a sigh of bitter regret for everything that would never be. "Well, come on, Bolly! As much as it pains me to admit it, that old boot is right. We can't sit here all bloody day."

He just wanted to get it all over and done with now. Wanted to lose himself in a bottle of single malt and drink away the hurt.

".....Oliver is a good man." Why was she telling him this? Just to twist the knife that little bit further?

"Yes he is." He couldn't deny that. At least Ryecroft had had the balls to tell her how he felt, to ask the question. It was far more than he'd ever done. He looked down at his hands, flexing the fingers, forcing them not to curl into fists and so betray his anguish

"And he loves me," Alex continued firmly, although he could have sworn that her huge hazel eyes were wide with something that just for an instant was almost akin to fear.

He nodded in reply, unable to speak, dropping his eyes from hers and turning away from her. It was true, he knew that Ryecroft loved Alex. He'd seen it written plainly on his face whenever he'd been with her in Luigi's. But why did she suddenly look so bloody terrified at the thought of marrying him?

Before he could marshal his thoughts in to any sort of coherent reply, she'd asked the driver to take them back to the church and all too soon, she was getting out of the car, only to swamped by an excited Shaz and Kathy, fussing over her dress. He left them to it, stepping back into the shadows, wishing he was anywhere but there at that moment.


	5. Boys Don't Cry

**Sorry this latest chapter has taken so long to post. To tell you the truth, the end of Series 2 derailed my train of thought; smashed it completely to be honest, and it's taken me ages to find the motivation to write again. Thanks you all for reading and for your reviews; they mean a great deal to me, especially in the dark days, post episode 8. ;-)**

**Characters are the property of Kudos and the BBC (even though they don't bloody well deserve them after messing with all of them so appallingly) and the lyrics are the property of The Cure.**

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I would break down at your feet  
And beg forgiveness  
Plead with you  
But I know that  
It's too late  
And now there's nothing I can do

So I try to laugh about it  
Cover it all up with lies  
I try to  
laugh about it  
Hiding the tears in my eyes  
'cause boys don't cry

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"_Perfect" declared Shaz, as she finished shaking the last of creases from Alex's dress. _"_Don't you think so, Guv?"_

"_She's always perfect." Alex heard Gene murmur as he came forward to stand at her side. She caught a flash of something, an odd expression in his eyes for just an instant and her stomach churned with nerves. She took refuge in small talk, distracting herself from the enormity of what she was about to do._

"_Why didn't you bring Lisa? Your invite did say plus one and it seems a bit mean to leave her out, considering she's your girlfriend, don't you think?" The question had been nagging her for some time now. It might seem ridiculous but she needed to know the answer._

_Gene drew himself up to his full height, looking down his nose at her, as his face took on the expression of haughty remoteness that he habitually wore when confronted with anything that he deemed to be too emotional._

"_Lisa was never my girlfriend, Alex." he said coldly, clearly angered by her impertinence. "She was just someone I slept with. We'd have a drink, then we'd shag. I never spent any meaningful amount of time with her that didn't involve some sort of sexual intent on my part. Not like....." he broke off, running one hand through his hair distractedly. He dropped his voice, as he became aware that Shaz was staring at them, his tone taking on a harsh, intense edge. "I never bought her dinner or made her breakfast. We never went shopping, or to the cinema, or spent the afternoon lounging on the sofa reading the newspapers. I never shared anything with her except sex. She was never that important to me."_

"_Was?" queried Alex, not really paying attention to what he was saying, as her heart hammered in her chest at the thought of Lisa being out of the picture. _

"_What?" he snapped, irritably, not understanding._

"_You said WAS. Have you split up?"_

_He snorted in derision. "Well, we were never really joined enough to split in the first place, but I've decided that I'm not shagging her any more if that's what you mean."_

"_You never told me! What happened?" Alex stared at him in consternation, hating the fact that he hadn't thought to mention it to her._

_Gene sniffed and stared into the distance, his face still revealing nothing. "She wanted to come to the wedding. That was the last thing on earth I wanted, so I told her she couldn't. She got stroppy, I got arsey and she walked out. End of story."_

"_I'm sorry...about you splitting up, I mean." Where the hell did that come from, she thought. She wasn't sorry at all. Quite the opposite in fact. _

_Gene shrugged. "Easy come, easy go; literally in her case. There'll be another one like her along soon. There always is."_

_Alex nodded, noting his bitterly sarcastic tone, overwhelmed by a whirl of conflicting emotions as she tried to process what he'd just told her. She knew that she should really be thinking about the imminent wedding ceremony, but her mind refused to concentrate, her thoughts skittering in all directions. Focus, Alex, focus, she urged herself. Just because he's not with her any more doesn't change anything. Think of all the other women that he slept with before Lisa. He's made it clear that he doesn't want you._

"_Right then. Let's get you in that church before Godzilla in a dress comes back, and I have to shut her up by the means of my boot up her backside." _

_Gene held out his arm and she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, feeling how tense he was as he held himself stiffly away from her. Side by side, they stepped through the doorway of the church and the organ music changed, announcing the arrival of the bride to the waiting congregation. _

_Alex barely registered the sea of faces watching her as she walked up the aisle towards Oliver. He stood watching her, a proud smile on his face as he waited for her to take her place by his side. She began to tremble, panic fluttering in her chest and she felt Gene's free hand close over hers as they reached the altar, his fingers stroking her skin in a brief and surprisingly tender caress before he let her go and stepped back a pace. _

"_Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this __Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony_ …" _The vicar began to speak, but Alex wasn't paying any attention, the thud of her furiously beating heart so loud in her ears that she could hardly hear him. _

_She looked up at Oliver, his eyes dark with love as he stood by her side, and then back to __where Gene stood, head bowed, his face shuttered and emotionless as the ceremony began. Alex gazed at him, unable to believe that this was happening, that she was losing him forever. What did she think she was doing! Was this really what she wanted? She glanced up at Oliver. Did she really want him as a husband? She looked back at Gene, achingly handsome in his morning suit, one lock of dirty blond hair flopping forward onto his forehead. She wanted to smooth it back into place, to stroke away the frown lines that knotted his brows, to kiss those grim lips until they opened under hers. She put one hand to her mouth to hold back a muffled sob as she felt her heart break all over again. _

"_Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" asked the vicar, turning expectantly to Gene._

_As Alex watched, he slowly raised his head, as if he were bowed down by some terrible weight and met her gaze for the first time since they'd entered the church. She waited for him to speak, but nothing happened. _

_All he had to say was 'I do', Alex thought in agitation. What was so difficult about that, for God's sake! Christ, what was the bloody matter with him? All he had to do was stand there and say the words and then it was all over; she'd become Mrs Oliver Ryecroft and he could go and pissed at the reception with the rest of the lads. _

_He stared at her in silence, as the whole congregation waited in hushed silence for his answer. She saw him shake his head, his mouth twisting into a grimace of regret and loss, his face revealing everything for just an instant, before he looked away from her once more._

_That one look hit her like a physical blow, one so hard that her breath stopped and her heart twisted sharply with anguish. She began to shake as the implications of what she'd done sank in, of the total mess she'd made of everything. She tried to say something, anything, but her throat had closed over, and the words wouldn't come out._

_Gene shook his head again and, through a haze of tears, Alex saw him speak. _

"_No." Gene stared at his shoes again, before looking up at her, his face firm and resolute now, despite the longing in his eyes. "I can't do this, Alex...... I'm sorry." _

_He turned and strode back down the aisle, head high, shoulders back, ignoring all the astonished faces that watched his progress from the church. As the heavy wooden door crashed shut behind him, Alex finally found her voice. "Gene! Wait…..Gene!.…please!"_

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Gene swirled his whisky round in his glass, once twice, before throwing it down his throat, his hand reaching for the bottle even as he swallowed the last dregs. As his fingers closed clumsily round its neck, another hand plucked it from his grasp.

"No. No more, Gene. You need to go to bed."

He looked up blearily at the tall, blonde woman who leaned over the bar and snatched up his car keys, shaking her head at him as he tried to swipe them back from her.

"Fuck's sake, Ava! Gimme them…"

"No way. You can't even walk properly, let alone drive." Ava Eriksen folded her arms and regarded Gene solemnly as he leaned against the bar. "Enough is enough. You're going home."

Ava owned the bar and her word was law. When she said you'd had enough, you left without an argument or you faced her wrath. Gene shrugged and gave in gracefully, following slowly her out of the door, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other without falling over.

She pushed him into the Land Rover, slamming the door hard to get it to shut before making her way round to the driver's side, cursing softly in Danish as she struggled to get the key into the ignition.

"Gently," he teased her. "All it needs is a nice bit of wrist action, Ava."

"Naughty" she grinned reprovingly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she did so. Gene felt a stab of loss as her gesture reminded him suddenly of Alex. He closed his eyes, leaning his pounding head against the window as Ava drove, wanting nothing more than the oblivion of sleep. She wound her way through the village, leaving behind the street lights and tarmacked roads that marked the spread of the holiday villas and bumping slowly over the rough track that led up the hillside. Ten minutes later they drew to a stop outside the high stone wall that hid the small whitewashed house from view.

"Thanks, Ava" he growled. "I appreciate it."

Ava smiled back at him. "You going to be OK all by yourself? I can stay if you need me to?" Her eyes met and held his. He briefly considered taking her up on her offer. It wouldn't be the first time that they'd spent the night together, but he decided against it, even though Ava was gorgeous. She was in her late thirties, blue-eyed and honey blonde with a good body and an even better personality. She was more like a bloke in that way; straight-talking and uncomplicated. There were no strings attached with Ava- what you saw, was what you got, and what you got was bloody fantastic sex. Trouble was, he liked her, she'd become a good friend in the 3 years that he'd known her and he'd belatedly discovered that he had too much respect for her to mess her around.

Gene shook his head, trying to find the words to turn her down gracefully. "Thanks for the offer, luv, but I'm not fit company tonight. I'm better off being a miserable bastard all on my own."

Ava stared at him for a moment longer before giving him a rueful smile. "Well, whoever she is, I hope she's sorry that she's broken your heart." She leaned over, and kissing him gently on the lips, laying her cool palm on his rough, unshaven cheek, before undoing the passenger door. "Night, Gene. I'll get someone to bring the Land Rover back to you tomorrow."

Gene watched her drive away, the tail lights shinning brightly in the darkness, before he pushed open the tall wooden gate and went inside. He considered opening another bottle of whisky, briefly regretting sending Ava away, but common sense triumphed over drunken misery and he made his way to his bedroom instead, shedding his clothes as he went, the welcoming cool of the sheets enveloping him as he fell instantly asleep.

He'd forgotten to close the shutters which meant he woke as the sun rose. He could hear Tomaso and Maria calling to each other as they did their early morning chores, the barking of their dogs as they let the goats out into the field further down the hill.

Grabbing a towel from the cupboard, Gene slouched outside into a perfect Spanish spring morning, pausing only to switch the kettle on before he dived into the impossibly blue water of the swimming pool. It was a little chilly but it did the trick and cleared his pounding head. He swam a few lengths before climbing out and lighting his first cigarette of the day, dragging down a welcome lung full of smoke as he made himself a cup of coffee. He took it out onto the veranda, stretching out on the bench and gazing out down the steep hillside to the distant glint of the sea.

He still couldn't believe this place was his, even though he'd owned it for nearly three years now. He'd always dreamt of retiring to Spain, although he'd had his doubts about fitting in with ex-pat lifestyle; endless rounds of golf and drinks parties weren't really his idea of a good time. Marion had never seemed very keen either; Mind you, no wonder she hadn't, if she'd been planning a future in Whitby with Howard instead.

When she'd left him and he'd sold the house, he'd suddenly found himself adrift, with no roots and no connection to anything or anyone. His old GMP colleague, Charlie Armstrong, had invited him out to Alicante for a holiday after they'd caught up with each other at Sam's memorial service. Charlie had retired early a couple of years previously on a full pension due to ill health, and he and his wife Peggy had a villa out there, in a small village about an hour from the airport and well away from the resort of Alicante itself .

"Come out and stay with us for a while, Gene." Peggy had urged. "It'll do you good and Charlie will enjoy it too. He gets bored playing golf all bloody day."

On the last day of his holiday, Charlie had walked him up the farm track, away from all the villas and apartments, into an undeveloped part of the countryside. He'd shown Gene the little rough stone house, tucked into the side of the hill, safe from being overrun by the developers by the steepness of the terrain. There was no-one else around, save for Tomaso's farmhouse a little further down the track towards the village, and a mile or so down the hill he could just make out the roof of Charlie's own villa.

"A mate of mine owns it, but he's decided to move further up the coast, nearer to Valencia," Charlie had told him casually as he'd unlocked the door, but Gene had known damn well what he was up to.

He'd stood on the veranda and gazed at the view whilst Charlie had watered the few pots of flowers in the garden and checked that all was as it should be. He'd felt peaceful there, relaxed even, and that was a rare feeling for him. He'd made the decision to buy it as he'd walked back down the hill, acting on instinct rather than any rational thought process.

The price had been a fair one and he'd been more than able to afford it. Gene had a terror of being poor. He'd grown up with the stigma of a father who drank his wages away every Friday night and he was well aware what life held for you if you were poor; disrespect, violence, the indifferent contempt of those who had more than you. He'd seen it first hand both as a child and as a copper and he'd been determined that it wouldn't happen to him.

Slowly he'd built up a sizeable chunk of savings as well as concentrating on paying off his mortgage early. When his Mam's sisters had died, having had the sense to marry solid, reliable husbands, they'd both named him as their sole beneficiary. He'd rented out their houses and bought another one with the money they'd left him. His Mam had lived in it for a few years until her death in the winter of '79 and now it was rented out like the others.

When Marion had left, she'd refused to take any money from the sale of their house and he'd been too distraught about Sam's death to do any more than stick it in a bank account until he'd found the time to think about what he was going to do with it.

He'd never had any intention of buying a house in London. London was a shithole, full of nutters and criminal scum and he had no wish to tie himself to such a city. Instead he'd rented a flat near Borough Market, liking the fact that he had to cross the river everyday to get to work. It was a place to sleep, somewhere to watch telly and read on his days off. To tell the truth, he felt no ties to it whatsoever. It was a roof over his head, nothing more nothing less.

The house in Spain was different; it represented a new start. What that actually meant was any one's guess, but he'd taken the risk, done something that nobody would have ever expected him to and it had given him hope that maybe all was not lost. Within six weeks the house been his; two bedrooms, one bathroom, a large living room/kitchen, not to mention a swimming pool, an amazing view out over the bay and a battered old Land Rover that was the only vehicle capable of coping with the rough farm track.

It was somewhere that he could escape to when the weight of expectations become all too much. He could stop being "The Guv" and just be himself. He liked the solitude, if the truth be known and if he got lonely, he had Charlie to drink with, the old men in Ava's bar to play cards with. His Spanish and their English was equally non-existent but they managed to make themselves understood somehow.

Whether he could actually live here full time when he finally left the Met was something he'd avoided thinking about so far. He wondered if it would be enough for him. He suspected that it wouldn't, that he would end up drinking himself to death from sheer boredom, but for now it was enough to have this place to retreat to every now and then.

He'd wanted to share it with Alex, had wanted her to see the hidden part of his life that no-one else knew about, but she'd ended it before he'd had the chance. A part of him was glad about this; relieved that she'd never stayed here with him and so the place was free of her memory, unlike his flat or the Station. She couldn't haunt him like she did back at home, although he knew that she would always have the power to render him almost helpless with longing when he let himself think about her

He drank his coffee and lit another cigarette as he thought about Ava's parting remark last night. "I hope she's sorry that she's broken your heart" Of course, Alex wasn't sorry. She didn't even know she'd broken it in the first place, hadn't even twigged when he'd told her about Lisa as they'd stood outside the church. He'd suddenly realised how sodding pointless it all was, being with some-one that you didn't even remotely care about. Granted, he'd only just decided that he was going to knock it on the head wi' Lisa, not that she'd probably ever speak to him again after the row they'd had, but Alex wasn't to know that.

He'd tried so hard to make Alex understand how special she'd been to him, how he'd never done any of those things with anyone else before, how she'd made such a difference to his life, but even as he'd said it, he'd wondered why he was bothering. What was bloody point? It had been too late by then, he'd lost her. And so he'd steeled himself to offer her his arm and to walk into the church with her, to give her to another man.

As they'd reached the altar he'd been unable to stop himself reaching out and stroking her hand as she'd gripped his arm. It was a gesture of farewell, one final touch before she was gone from him. He'd stood beside her, forcing himself to remain still and silent as the Vicar had begun to speak. What good would it have done to say anything? He'd have only made a complete twat of himself in front of everyone, not mention ruining Alex's wedding, and as much as he hated what was happening, he didn't want to make her unhappy. Then the Vicar had asked him to speak and he'd found that he couldn't. Couldn't say a bloody word as all those faces had stared at him, waiting for his answer. He'd gazed at her, unable to hide how he felt about her any more, letting his true feelings show, just for a second before he'd found his voice.

He remembered how loud his footsteps had sounded in the shocked silence, his heels ringing on the flagstones as he'd walked away from her, how he'd forced his pace to remain measured and even when all he'd wanted to do was get out of there as quickly as he could, letting the church door crash closed behind him as he fled from the woman he loved.

He wondered what she'd done after he'd walked out on her. He'd thought for one ridiculous moment that he'd heard her call out to him, but that was just nonsense and he had no time for such wishful thinking. He hadn't been thinking straight anyway; he'd just been desperate to get as far away from her as possible and so when the taxi had appeared round the corner at the very same moment as he'd emerged from the archway of the courtyard, he'd hailed it, making for Fenchurch East and the haven of his office.

He'd planned to go home, get changed and collect his overnight bag after he'd left the reception, but he'd not even been able to manage that, so great had been his desire to remove himself from all possible contact with anyone who'd just witnessed what had happened. The last thing he'd wanted was Ray turning up to ask him what the hell was going on.

He'd changed out of that stupid suit and into the spare clothes that he always kept in his locker, scribbling a note to Shaz asking her to take it back to the hire shop. Then he'd grabbed his passport from his desk drawer and driven to the airport, not caring that he was a few hours earlier than he needed to be. There were bars in the departure lounge and he'd made full use of them while he'd waited for his flight to Alicante.

He'd booked it a month ago, having decided that the only way he could deal with the aftermath was to take a weeks holiday. The newly weds were away for a fortnight, and by the time Alex got back he hoped that he would be strong enough to face her if their paths ever crossed. He'd already made up his mind to have nothing more to do with Mrs Alex Ryecroft if he could help it.

Alex would be on her honeymoon now. Somewhere in the Bahamas he thought she'd said. He closed his eyes and imagined her, stretched out on a sun lounger by the pool, her glorious body clad in only the briefest of bikinis, her skin golden from the sun. The familiar, nagging ache took hold of his heart once more, matched this time by the ache in his groin. He wanted her, so much, even after all this time.

He flung himself out out of his chair, pacing restlessly as he wondered what the fuck he was going to do with himself for the rest of the day. He couldn't start drinking this early in the morning, could he? Charlie and Peggy had gone back to England for a couple of weeks on Tuesday, so even a game of golf was out of the question. Christ, what the fuck was wrong with him? He fucking hated golf! He'd only played on Monday so that he could talk to Charlie as they walked round the course. He'd told him all about the whole wedding fiasco, making light of it all at first and then pouring out his heart to his old friend as they'd sat in the club bar and the alcohol had taken hold.

What day was it today? He'd lost track of time, stuck up here with no one else to talk to. Wandering into the kitchen, he switched on the radio just for the comfort of another voice. Thursday, today was Thursday, well it was according to BBC Radio anyway. He rubbed a hand across his face, feeling the rasp of days old stubble. Shower and shave, he told himself, then down to the village for breakfast. He cursed as he stepped under the warm jets of water, realising that he would have to walk down as his Land Rover was still at Ava's. Still, it wasn't all bad; she always did a good fried breakfast and she'd probably give him extra bacon if he smiled at her nicely.

Fifteen minutes later, freshly shaven, hair still damp and looking infinitely more presentable than he had done in days, Gene set off down the track to the village. He was just out of earshot as the phone in the kitchen began to ring and ring, on and on, shrilling into the silence, its urgent summons going unheeded.

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**I have no idea as to the actual geography of the Alicante region of Spain, but this is my fic and I can write it how I want to, and so there's definitely a small village with a bar run by a hot Danish bird and a house half way up a hill for Gene to live in. ;-)**


	6. Ever So Lonely

_Pulling her jacket tightly closed around her, Alex felt the rain slowly inching its way down the back of her neck, making her even more uncomfortable than she was already, and adding to her dismal mood. It was nearly June, for God's sake! It shouldn't be raining. Mind you, it probably rained all the bloody time in this god-forsaken place. She'd only been here two days and already it felt like a life sentence, although, to be fair, she wasn't really in the best frame of mind to judge the city of Manchester rationally. _

_She hadn't slept properly in days and her whole frame was suffused with a dull, aching misery as though she had toothache that had spread throughout her entire body. Her head throbbed and her eyes felt painfully scratchy due to a combination of too little sleep and far too many tears. She'd hadn't felt this lonely since she'd first arrived in this world and it was unbearable. She couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, could barely function at all; all she wanted was Gene but he was nowhere to be found._

_It had been a spilt-second decision that had brought her here, just as it had been when she'd tried to follow him as he'd stalked from the church. She could still hear the crash of the door closing behind him, the panic in her voice as she'd called after him. She'd acted without any thought, all her instincts telling her to go after the man she loved. She'd only managed to get a few steps down the aisle before Oliver's hand on her arm had pulled her back, wrenching her round to face him. _

"_Alex! What the bloody hell is going on?" he'd asked, his brow furrowed in bemused irritation. _

_Poor Oliver; he may have well been invisible for all the thought she'd given him. She'd forgotten about him completely. It was this knowledge that had made her realise that she was doing the right thing; it was Gene she wanted, not Oliver, even if Gene refused her, and it had given her the courage to say what she did._

"_Oliver...... I'm so sorry…I can explain….really I can…but not now! I need to talk to Gene…"_

_She'd tried to pry his fingers from her arm, desperate to follow Gene, but Oliver's grip had tightened as his face grew dark with anger._

"_You're sorry? What the hell's that supposed to mean? I want an explanation, Alex and I want it now!" he'd demanded. "We're supposed to be getting married for God's sake!"_

_She'd never seen him that angry before and she'd tried to remind herself that none of it was his fault; he'd had no idea what had really happened between her and Gene. All she'd told him was that they'd slept together once or twice, as she hadn't wanted him to be jealous. He'd accepted this, although he'd not been at all happy about it. It had been Oliver's insistence that she try and forget about that particular bit of her past that had led her to hide the photo of her and Gene on the inside of her wardrobe door, where he wouldn't see it._

_From the corner of her eye, Alex had seen Celia begin to stand up from her seat, ready to support her precious son, and she'd realised that the situation was about to spiral rapidly out of control._

"_Please let me go," she'd begged him, fighting to keep her tone calm and even._

"_No! Not until you tell me exactly what's going on."_

"_Oliver, please..... don't make me do this here......please….just let me go." She gazed at him pleadingly, willing him to hear what she was really asking him to do, not wanting to say it in front of all his friends and family._

_He'd stared back at her, his eyes filling with sudden tears and she'd felt like a total bitch at that point for hurting him so badly._

"_I see…" he'd drawn a shaky breath before continuing to speak, his voice breaking. "We're not getting married after all, are we Alex." She'd seen how much he'd struggled to hold on to some semblance of dignity, his jaw locked tight as he'd fought not to break down in front of everyone. _

_She'd shaken her head, her heart aching for the pain she was causing him, taking a step back from him as his grip on her arm relaxed._

"_And it's him you want...... not me." It had been a statement, not a question, as he'd already known what her answer would be._

"_Yes….it is…. It's all my fault…. I'm so sorry." Unable to look at him for a moment longer, Alex had turned and fled from the church, past her astonished colleagues and Oliver's outraged relatives. _

_There'd been no sign of Gene anywhere. West Smithfieldhad been deserted, save for a group of tourists on a guided walk, all of them gazing at her with amazement as she ran to the corner of Long Lane , hoping to catch sight of him. There was nothing there, just a glimpse of a solitary black cab turning the corner onto Aldersgate Street._

_Turning back towards the church, knowing that it was more than likely to be Gene in the black cab, Alex had spied the Rolls Royce and its driver waiting patiently by the curb,. Picking up her encumbering skirts in one hand, she'd raced back to the car and knocked frantically on the window. _

_The driver had wound down his window, displaying no surprise at all at seeing Alex standing on the pavement, breathless with panic._

"_Can you take me to Snowsfields in Borough, please?" Alex had flung herself into the back of the car without waiting for a reply and the driver had accelerated away smoothly without a word._

_Gene would be at his flat. She'd been convinced about that. There was no way he'd go anywhere else, not while he was still dressed up for a wedding. Gene hated looking like a fool and she'd known that he'd felt immensely uncomfortable in his morning suit. He'd go to his flat, change, and then take refuge in a pub somewhere. _

_To her dismay, his flat had been deserted and there'd been no sign of him at the pub a few doors down, either. Alex had made the driver wait outside the flat for another half an hour, but eventually he'd regretfully announced that he would have to take her home as he had another booking to get to. He'd driven her back into the City in silence, leaving her to her thoughts, until he'd brought the car to a halt outside Luigi's._

"_It's the bloke you came to the church wiv, right?" he'd asked her with a gentle smile._

"_What?" She'd not really been paying attention, frantically trying to work out what to do next. _

"'_e's the reason you did a runner?"_

_Alex had laughed bitterly. "Yes, and now it would seem that he has too."_

"_Thought so. I can always tell. You could cut the atmosphere between you wiv a knife on the way to the church. I thought you were gonna call it off when we got there, quite frankly."_

"_I nearly did." Alex admitted. "Anyway, how did you know it was him?" she'd asked, her natural curiosity getting the better of her misery for a minute._

_The driver had shrugged. "You do this job as long as I 'ave, you develop a knack for knowing which ones won''t go through wiv it. Anyway, it was pretty damn obvious 'ow 'e felt from the way 'e was looking at you." He'd smiled at Alex's puzzled face. "Like 'is whole world was ending," he'd said softly. "'e might be a grumpy old sod, but he loves you, no mistaking that. And you obviously love 'im, if you've run out on the bloke you were supposed marry. Good luck, Miss. I 'ope you find each other again."_

_So do I, Alex had thought fervently,as she'd hurried up to her flat, pulling off her wedding dress and throwing it into the wardrobe whilst tearing the flowers from her hair with her free hand. She'd had no idea what she was going to do next and had forced herself to sit down and think logically about where else to look for Gene._

_She'd gone to the Station as that seemed the most likely place for him to be, now that she knew he wasn't at his flat, but no-one had seen him there since he'd left on Friday afternoon. She'd gone back to the restaurant and found Luigi, who'd informed her with a wry smile that he'd worked out long ago that she and Gene had been an item. Alex had accepted a shy, consoling hug from him as she'd brought him up-to-date with her non-wedding and he'd assured her that he would let Gene know what had happened if he turned up. She'd then spent the rest of the day sitting in a borrowed car outside Gene's flat, willing him to reappear. _

_When she'd returned home early Sunday morning, defeated and aching with misery, ironically she'd found Oliver, almost incoherent with drunkenness, waiting for her outside her flat. He'd begged her, pleaded with her to listen to him, to give him another chance. She'd rushed up the stairs, knowing that there was no point in trying to talk to him while he was in such a state, shutting the door in his face, and sliding the bolt across._

"_What do I have to do to put this right, Alex? How do I make you love me?" he'd demanded, over and over, yelling through the locked door, getting angrier and angrier as she refused to let him. _

_In the end, Luigi had arrived, tousled and indignant, and insisted that he left Alex alone. Oliver had been adamant that he wasn't going to move, and so Luigi had fetched two uniformed officers from Fenchurch East who had threatened Oliver with arrest unless he left quietly. _

_After snatching a couple of hours sleep, Alex had begun her search once more, desperately visiting every pub for miles in a futile effort to find Gene, ending with a long, lonely, ultimately pointless wait outside his flat in Snowsfields until the early hours._

_On Monday morning, she'd gathered her courage and rung the Station, only to be told that the Guv had taken a week's leave. No, no-one knew where he'd gone, the unfamiliar Desk Sergeant had informed her briskly. _

_At the end of her tether, and not knowing what else to do, Alex had packed an overnight bag and gone to find Luigi. She'd given him a letter, with instructions to give it to Gene if he showed his face at the restaurant._

"_You are going away, Senorigna Drake?" the little Italian asked her anxiously._

"_Only for a couple of days, Luigi. I'm trying to find Gene, so that I can explain things."_

_Luigi fixed her with a fierce glare. "What is there to explain? You love him. He loves you. You should never have broken up in the first place. The two of you give me palpitations for months with all your silly nonsense. Mr Hunt, with first this girl and then that one, and you with your "oh so English" doctor who is "oh so wrong" for you. You are both like silly children. Go and find him, Signorina, and when you do, promise me – no childish games, please – just lots of kissing and making up."_

_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

_Alex smiled at the recollection of Luigi's stern face as she huddled back against the bleak concrete wall, her eyes fixed on the doorway opposite her. Come on, she urged silently. Where are you? You must be here somewhere. _

_A movement just inside the station entrance hall caught her eye and she gave a small smile of triumph as the person she'd been waiting for all afternoon emerged from the doors into the dismal rain._

_DS Annie Tyler; a woman whom Alex knew only through photographs, Gene's occasional drunken ramblings, and Sam Tyler's tape recordings. A woman who she hoped would prove to be more helpful to her than any of Gene's other former fellow officers had been so far. She waited until Annie had crossed the windswept pavement to the steps before calling her name._

"_DS Tyler? Can I have a word?" Alex presented her badge for Annie's inspection. "I'm DI Alex Drake. I'm with the Met and I'm trying to find a former colleague of yours and I wondered if you could shed any light on his whereabouts."_

_Annie assessed Alex silently, her blue eyes guarded, almost hostile. She was very different from the woman that Alex had seen in the photos; her expression harder, much of her softness gone. Alex watched her anxiously as she weighed up her answer. _

"_Tell me who you're looking for first, Ma'am and then I'll decide if I can help." Annie gave her a defiant look and Alex chose her words with care as she lied, feeling uncomfortable as she did so, but not wanting to reveal her personal reasons for tracking Gene down._

"_It's DCI Hunt. We're working on a case, a very important case…. a murder……a young girl in fact… and Hunt's gone AWOL. There's been a breakthrough in the case, and to tell you the truth, we're all a bit stuck without him and so I'm trying to track him down….."_

"_He wouldn't do that." Annie interrupted hotly, her eyes blazing with indignation. "The Guv would never do that!" She looked uncomfortable as she realised that she was talking to a senior officer and lowered her tone, bringing her temper under control._

"_I'm sorry DI Drake. I don't mean to be rude, but I worked with the Guv for a long time and he'd never take off in the middle of something that important. So either, he's in trouble and you're trying to catch him out, or there's something else going on here." Annie glared at her as Alex tried to smooth things over. Things were not going at all as she'd hoped and she desperately needed Annie on her side._

"_OK, look….. I really do need to find DCI Hunt. It's not anything to do with work, but it is very important."_

_Annie shook her head. "Still not good enough. I'm not saying anything without you telling me the truth. I've worked hard to get where I am in this station, and I'm not going to ruin my reputation by dropping a fellow officer in the shit."Annie spoke firmly and Alex knew that she would have to tell her truth, no matter how vulnerable it made her._

"_You're right and I'm sorry. To be honest, Annie, you're my last hope. I've been everywhere; all the pubs that he talked about, all the clubs – nothing. No-one's seen him, and even if they have, they're certainly not going to tell me. I've tried talking to umpteen of his old colleagues and they've all given me the cold shoulder."_

_Annie gave Alex a bitter little smile. " Well, you're a woman. Worse than that you're a Southerner too, and a proper posh one at that. That lot aren't going to tell you what time it is, let alone where DCI Hunt might be."_

"_You're right." Alex risked a hesitant smile. "Look, can I buy you a drink? I'll tell you everything, I promise. I just need to get out of this damn rain."_

_Annie thought about it for a moment before nodding. "OK."_

_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

_The pub was quiet at this time of the day and Annie made her way over to the table in the corner. Alex slung her jacket over the back of a chair before asking Annie what she wanted to drink. "Vodka and coke, please" she replied stiffly, clearly still suspicious of her motives, watching Alex with guarded curiosity as she stood at the bar, gazing around her. _

_The Railway Arms appeared to be unchanged from Sam Tyler's vivid taped descriptions of it; still drab, brown, and smoke-stained, with worn-out décor, and furniture dating from the from the nineteen fifties. It felt odd to be here, in a place that had been so important to them both._

_Gene had told her so many stories about this pub and the people that had drunk in here with him. She was jerked out of her reverie by the barmaid holding out her hand wordlessly for payment and Alex handed over the money, before picking up the drinks and making her way back to Annie._

"_Whisky?" queried Annie with a raised eyebrow. "You've definitely been hanging about with DCI Hunt."_

"_It's all he has to drink in his office, and I've sort of grown to like the taste without even realising it." Alex smiled softly, "Rather like the man himself."_

_Annie gave her a triumphant smile. "Thought so. This is about something personal, isn't it? What's he done? Got you pregnant?"_

_Alex gave a shocked laugh. "No! Nothing like that!....although we are…well, we were together…as a couple…." She tailed off, shaking her head. "It's complicated."_

"_So? I've got a while before I have to go; talk me through it. Why do you need to find the Guv so badly you'd stand outside the station in the pouring rain waiting for a chance to __talk to me?"_

_Alex considered her answer, wondering just how much she should reveal Annie, before deciding that she had to tell her everything. Not being honest about her true feelings had got her into this situation in the first place._

"_Because I love him." replied Alex, realising as she said it that she'd never told anyone else how she felt about Gene before. "I love him and we should never have broken up. We should have talked to each other and been honest about how we felt. I walked out on Oliver on our wedding day because it's Gene that I want, even if he doesn't want me, but I think he does and he just can't say it, and so if I could just find him and tell him how I felt, then I really think there might be a chance for us…" Alex broke off, aware that she was rambling now, picking up her glass and taking a large gulp of whisky to calm herself down._

_Annie stared at her in shock. "You left the bloke you were supposed to marry for the Guv?"_

_Alex nodded. "I left him at the altar" She caught sight of Annie's amazed expression and felt herself smile, despite everything. "It was all a bit dramatic. I asked Gene to give me away and when it came to it, he couldn't do it. He walked out on me and I ran after him. There was no contest really. He was all I could think about."_

"_Bloody hell. It takes guts to do something like that."_

_Alex shook her head. "It didn't feel that way to me. It was a pretty cowardly thing to do. I should have had the courage to tell Gene that I loved him when we were together and not got poor Oliver involved in my problems. I've been searching for him since Saturday, but he seems to have totally disappeared."_

_Annie leaned forward, her face serious. "Look DI Drake, now that you've explained things, I'd love to be able to help you, but to be honest I'm the last person the Guv would turn to."_

"_But I thou__ght you were close? You worked together for years."_

"_We were. We were all close, the whole team was, but then Sam died and everything fell to pieces. I haven't seen DCI Hunt for years."_

"_Why?" Alex was puzzled as to what would make Gene turn his back on a past that had obviously meant so much to him._

_Annie gave her a small, sad smile. "Every time he looked at me, I reminded him of what he'd lost. He doesn't come back to Manchester much, anyway. There's nothing left here for him now."_

_Alex looked puzzled. "But surely he'd have colleagues, friends that he could stay with?"_

_Annie shook her head. "A few, but not many." Annie sighed as she saw Alex's puzzled frown deepen. "You have to understand what happened when Sam arrived here. He made such a difference to how we did things. He changed people; me, Chris, but most of all, he changed DCI Hunt."_

_Alex smiled softly. "I know. Gene talks about him sometimes and I knew Sam, a little." Annie looked surprised and Alex gave her an edited version of the truth, not knowing how much Sam had ever told Annie about his past. " I never actually met him. He sent me tapes. I'm a psychologist and I helped him work through a trauma that he'd gone through. I think that I may have helped him to reconcile himself with what had happened to him. He certainly made the right choice in the end, anyway." She glanced up at Annie, wanting to ask her more about Sam, but was stopped by the desolate expression on her face. _

"_Don't ask me about him," Annie told her in a fierce, shaky whisper. "Please. I can deal with what happened, but I can't really talk about him very much."_

"_I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. You don't need to tell me any of this if you don't want to."_

_Annie shook her head, twisting a beer mat over and over in her fingers as she did so. "It's OK. I want you know how we all felt about him. He made all of us want to be good coppers and the Guv was no exception. He started to do things properly; by the book. Stopped the fit-ups, the back-handers, the dodgy evidence, everything. When he and Sam put away Stephen Warren, I was so proud of them, all of us were, but there were some coppers who didn't like it, not many of them mind, but enough to make life difficult. They still wanted to do things the old way and they blamed the Guv for letting Sam behave the way he did. They wanted him to slap Sam down, put him in his place, but he wouldn't." Annie sighed, her gaze far way, looking into the past._

"_When Sam died, there was no way that the Guv could carry on working in this city, and to tell the truth, he didn't want to. His wife leaving hit him hard, but Sam's death nearly broke him. The two of them were a team, they knew each other so well, and suddenly __Gene was alone. He couldn't stand up to the rest of them without Sam. There were enough officers who would have backed him up, carried on with what Sam had started, but the Guv lost the will to keep fighting, so he transferred. It was that, or watch his enemies win. Either way, I think it almost killed him to leave everything he'd ever known."_

_Alex nodded in understanding, remembering Gene's bitterly cynical attitude when she'd first arrived in 1981; the brooding silences, the drinking, the bursts of vicious fury that he seemed barely able to control at times._

_He was a man still grieving for what he'd lost and she hadn't even realised. She'd been too caught up in her own trauma to think about him a real person, with real doubts and fears. Poor man. He'd been through all that, had finally thought that he'd found some sort of meaningful relationship with her, and then she'd rejected him. She'd just cast him aside and yet had still selfishly expected him to still be there for her when she needed him. She felt the tears that were all too near the surface these days pricking the backs of her eyes. She sniffed fiercely and took another gulp of whisky._

_Annie reached out tentatively and put her hand on Alex's arm. "Hey, don't cry. I'm sure he's OK. He's just gone to ground somewhere. If I know DCI Hunt, he'll turn up at work on Monday morning with a huge hangover, a bacon butty in one hand and a mug of tea in the other."_

_Alex gave a despairing laugh. "I know you're right, but I just want to find him now. I need to tell him how I feel, and how sorry I am for messing him around." She wiped her eyes briskly with the back of her hand, knowing that she was probably smudging her eye make as she did so. "Sorry.....I'll just go and sort myself out," she told Annie with an embarrassed smile. _

_When she returned from the Ladies, Annie was deep in conversation with a tall, good-looking man in his mid-thirties. He saw Alex making her way towards them and began to move back towards the bar, but not before Alex had noticed his hand gently stroking the back of Annie's neck. "We'd best be going if you want to catch the early showing at the cinema, love," she heard him say as she drew level with them. Annie nodded in agreement, holding Alex's stare as she did so. _

"_What?" she challenged, defensively. "I'm a widow, not a bloody nun, DI Drake."_

_Alex shook her head. "Nothing," she replied. "I was just thinking how pleased I was that there was someone special in your life."_

_Annie visibly relaxed as she realised that Alex wasn't condemning her in any way. "Thanks," she murmured quietly. "The last thing Sam would want for me is to still be sitting at home mourning for him, but there's some round here who think I should be doing just that."_

_She looked over at the man leaning on the bar. "Nick's a good man and he takes care of me."_

"_What line of work is he in?" asked Alex, sensing that Annie needed to talk._

_Annie grinned and rolled her eyes. "He's a copper; a sergeant, like me, only he's uniform, not CID."_

"_So he's OK with you being a policewoman, then? He understands what you go through everyday."_

_Annie nodded. "It does make it easy, going out someone in the same line of work." She looked Alex up and down and Alex could tell that she was deciding whether or not to ask her something._

"_What?" she grinned, echoing Annie's earlier challenge. Annie laughed and Alex felt a brief, flash of camaraderie, followed by a pang of regret that she would probably never get to know Annie any better._

"_Tell me DI Drake, how did you make DI when all I'm ever going to manage is DS, and I only got that because the Guv made it his personal business to see me promoted."_

"_Really?" Alex was surprised, although she shouldn't have been. She knew that Gene had hidden depths even though they were well-concealed by his outwardly fearsome manner._

"_He roared and shouted and bullied anyone who'd listen until they admitted that despite being a woman, I was very good at my job." Annie gave a resigned shrug. "I'm realistic enough to know that this is as far as I'll get, though. Blokes don't want a woman for boss." _

"_Trust me. Even though I come from a much more enlightened world than you do, they still have trouble with the woman being in charge thing…. especially Ray Carling" she added with a smile. _

_Annie laughed. "Well, what do you expect from a bloke like that. He doesn't think woman should be in the force, full stop." She turned as Nick approached them again._

"_I'm sorry to interrupt, but it really is time to go, Annie." _

_Annie turned back to Alex and caught her hand in her own. "I'm sorry I couldn't help, Alex, and I hope you find him soon. Let me know what happens, please?"_

_Alex caught the tentative offer of friendship and gave the younger woman a warm smile, squeezing her fingers in genuine affection. "I will, I promise."_

_She watched as they made their way out of the pub, Nick standing back to let Annie through the door first. "Be happy, Annie Tyler", she whispered. What do I do now? she wondered as she finished the remains of her whisky. Stay for another, or try looking somewhere else?_

_As she sat, her head in her hands, trying to make up her mind, a glass of whisky slid slowly across the table, coming to rest in front of her. She looked up in surprise and found herself staring up at a tall, silver-haired man. He was in his late fifties, lean and sun-tanned, with a friendly smile and pair of twinkling brown eyes that regarded her with a delighted amusement. Please don't even think about trying to chat me up, she thought wearily as he began to speak._

"_Forgive me for being a bit cheeky, luv but I couldn't help overhearing you and Annie talking about DCIHunt. Would I be right in thinking that your name is Alex?"_

_Alex frowned and nodded, not knowing what to say in case this strange man was someone unwelcome from Gene's past._

"_You know DS Tyler then?" she asked him cautiously, playing for time._

"_Of course I do. __We al__l know Annie. She's the only bird in CID in this neck of the woods. I like her, she's a good girl. Shame about her old man. They were made for each, those two."_

"_So I hear, Mr…?" Alex raised one eyebrow and the man smiled._

"_I'm so sorry, love. I didn't introduce myself, did I? I was too bowled over at finding you in here…. I'm an old friend of Gene's. My name's Charlie… Charlie Armstrong."_


	7. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down

**Sorry this next instalment has taken SO long. It's absolutely nothing to do with me - I put the blame firmly on children, holidays, work and my dear, demanding husband. **

**Thank you, as always, to everyone who takes the time to read my stuff and thank you for all your lovely reviews. I am (as ever) shockingly behind in replying to you all. Sorry. (see above for my excuses ;-))**

**The characters, as always, belong to Kudos and the lyrics to Elvis Costello.**

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"S**adness is all my lonely heart can feel.**

**I can't stand up for falling down.****"**

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Gene pushed his plate away from him, even though it was still stacked high with food and grimaced sheepishly at Ava.

"Sorry luv. It's not your cooking, it's my appetite. I'm bloody starving but I can't eat a thing. Dunno what's wrong wi' me these days; can't eat, can't sleep unless I'm too pissed to do anything else… I'm a bloody wreck."

No word of a lie either, he thought savagely. Despite a shower and clean clothes, he still felt like death warmed-up. His whole body ached with a dull, miserable pain that just refused to let up, no matter how much drink he poured into himself. It was like having toothache all over, or as if he was sickening for something. '_You, Gene Hunt, are lovesick_,' he chided himself. "Big, daft nancy poof" he muttered out loud, as he lit another cigarette.

"Who is?" queried Ava as she removed the plate from the table.

"Nothing..." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I am" he admitted with a shake of his head. "It doesn't matter…….Give us a drink Ava, for God's sake. You've a whole bar full of the stuff downstairs and we're sitting here drinking poxy coffee."

She scraped the food into the bin, turning to dunk the plate into the washing up bowl, before reaching into a cupboard and handing Gene a bottle of brandy and a glass. "It's all I've got in the flat, so don't complain. I don't really drink much these days. I've learnt my lesson."

Leaning back against the worktop, she regarded Gene with a shrewd stare.

"Tell me about her." she demanded.

Gene frowned, concentrating on pouring the brandy. "Who?"

"The woman who is eating away at your heart so much that you can't even eat your breakfast."

He sighed heavily. "Is it that obvious?"

"Yes. You've been drunk every night since you got here and not 'happy- drunk' like you usually are, either. You are '_miserable, throw-me-off-the-nearest-cliff,my-world-has-ended_' drunk. As I said last night, I hope she's sorry for what she's done."

"I don't think she even knows she's done anything." Gene took a restoring gulp of the brandy, feeling the fiery liquid burning its way down his throat. It was worrying how good the feeling was, how he craved the taste, eager for the drunken numbness that replaced the pain. "I don't even know where to start. It's all such a mess."

Ava gave him a sympathetic smile. "Try. Start with something simple. What colour are her eyes?"

"Green," he replied instantly, before quickly contradicting himself. "Well, sometimes they are… sometimes, they're gold …. Hazel, I suppose you'd call them. They change colour all the time …depends on what mood her Ladyship's in." He shook his head with a wry smile. "That's not really a simple answer is it?"

"No, but it's an interesting one. Tell me some more about her…what's her name?"

"Alex" Gene felt a sharp stab of pain as he spoke, and drained his glass. "Detective Inspector Alexandra Drake."

"Ahh – so you work together?"

"Nope. Not any more. She transferred……. wanted to get away from me. And technically she worked _for_ me, although most of the time she had the ability to make it seem as though it was the other way round…." He broke off, half-exasperated. "Ava, why are you asking me all these bloody questions?"

"I'm curious, that's all. Describe her to me – this Alex, who has such a hold on you."

"OK." Gene shrugged, staring at the tabletop for a moment before gazing around Ava's kitchen, trying to find the words. He didn't know what to say about Alex at the best of times, much less how to describe her. Alex had always been a mystery to him, layer upon layer of contradiction and complexity in equal measures. He poured himself another brandy and started with the easy things; the faults, the aspects of her character that drove him mad.

"She's bossy… arrogant….. always thinks she's right even when she's not. She speaks with a plum in her gob… bats her eyelashes and wiggles her bum to get her own way…. She's far too fond of the sound of her own voice, too bloody intelligent for her own good ….and she's got a punch that nearly put me on the sodding floor."

"You argue then?" asked Ava curiously.

"All the bloody time."

"What about?"

"Everything. We have nothing in common. We're total opposites. Chalk and bloody cheese." Gene replied gloomily.

"And yet you can't stop thinking about her." Ava gave him a knowing look. "Why do you think that is?"

"Christ knows." He snorted dismissively, unwilling to admit to her that he loved Alex. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, lapsing into reflective silence for a while before continuing, his voice soft, quite forgetting that Ava was listening to him. "She's got the best pair of legs I've ever seen, great tits, a bloody fantastic arse….. …….she's got a temper that can make my DC tremble in his boots; woe betide anyone who's stupid enough to piss her off…..She's confident, funny, brave but sometimes, when she thinks she's alone, she looks so sad and lost. Couldn't ever find out why though. She would never tell me."

His voice was almost a whisper now as he lost himself in recollection of the woman he loved "……She has faint freckles on her nose underneath all the make-up. She wears this scent that drives me mad…..and her skin tastes of vanilla… and roses…. and spices…….."

He stopped suddenly, appalled at revealing so much of his inner thoughts, forcing himself to finish the sentence, needing to say it out loud after months of keeping it all locked inside his heart. "She's beautiful…..and I've never met anyone like her, ever." He realised that his glass was empty once more and quickly filled it up again.

"And you love her?" whispered Ava, her voice breaking slightly.

Almost against his will, Gene felt himself give her a terse nod, his eyes fixed firmly on the glass in his hand.

"So why aren't you with her? Why are you here, drinking yourself stupid and grieving for her" asked Ava, gently.

Slowly, sitting in the shaft of morning sunshine that poured in through the open kitchen door, he told her everything that had happened between him and Alex; the mistakes, the misunderstandings, all the fears that had gripped him and caused him to lose her. It didn't make him feel any better, in fact it made him feel like shit, realising just how much of an idiot he'd been about everything.

"…I couldn't stand there and keep silent any more, so I walked out…..just left her to it." He sniffed, his mouth turned down into a grim line of regret. "And so it's over. What's done is done. I can't change things."

Ava pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him, taking his hand in hers. "You will get better eventually, Gene. Trust me. I know how it feels to lose someone you love.

"Oh really?" he snapped viciously. "What happened? Did he get married to someone else and invite you to stand right there next him and watch it happen?" Gene saw Ava flinch from the bitter sarcasm in his voice and silently berated himself for taking his anger out on her.

Ava snatched her hand back from his, folding her arms tightly across her chest. "No," she replied with quiet dignity. "He died."

"Oh God, Ava, I'm sorry." Gene dropped his head into his hands, wishing he could take back his unkind remark. Christ, now he really did feel bad. She was only trying to help and he was being a bastard to her.

"It's OK, it was a long time ago. We were at University." Ava shrugged, feigning indifference, but he could hear the hurt in her voice.

Gene watched her as she struggled to regain her composure, noticing the tense set of her shoulders, the tightness in her jaw. It was Alex who'd made him really aware of a person's body language, how you could read the right answers in them, even when the words that they uttered tried to convinced you otherwise. So why hadn't he been able to read Alex herself? Maybe he hadn't thought to look as he'd been too caught up in how he was feeling? He clenched his teeth together, fighting the urge to roar with pain that the thought caused him. He was so sick of this! So sick of feeling the hopeless, all-encompassing ache of loss, interspersed with these moments of intense, gut-wrenching agony.

He remembered the time when he was a lad when he'd fallen over and ended up with a splinter of glass in his knee. It had taken weeks to work it's way out of his flesh and sometimes he'd even forgotten it was there, only to have the pain slice into him if he'd knelt on it the wrong way, or if Mam had washed the dirt of his knees too roughly. The memory of Alex produced the same sharply exquisite pain, deep in his chest. He wondered how long it would her take to work her way out of his heart. A lifetime?

He honestly didn't know if he could cope with feeling like this for much longer. He glanced up at Ava again. It seemed that she had learned to live with a greater loss and he wondered how she'd managed it.

"So what did you do…you know….after he'd…afterwards."

"I cried a great many tears; I shouted and raged at the world for being so unfair and when there were no more tears left to cry, I got drunk a lot and slept with unsuitable men…." Ava laughed wryly. "A great many unsuitable men, if I'm honest. Some of them were good, some of them were bad, but not one of them was the right person to heal the pain."

Gene grimaced in recognition of his own particular method of trying to blot out the hurt. "I've done that too. I slept wi' some gorgeous women.....well, some of them were. Some of them were a good deal less gorgeous in the morning when I'd sobered up. Anyway, it didn't work. It only made me feel worse."

Ava nodded. "I know. After a year or so, I got married to a man who I knew had always loved me, who had always been there for me. It worked for a little while, but he wasn't strong enough to keep me safe from my demons. I didn't respect him enough and I pushed him too far with my drinking and my infidelity.

We got divorced, I travelled for few years and then I found this place and I finally stopped running away. So here I am, taking life one day at a time, trying to be happy with what I've got." She fixed him with a bright blue stare. "One day, you will be able to do that too. You'll be content with what you have, not with what might have been…..and perhaps you will realise that it is possible to find happiness again."

Gene shook his head. "I'd like to believe you luv, but I've seen too much shit happen in this life to have much faith in happy ever after."

"What will you do, when you go back home?" Ava stared at him intently and Gene had a strange feeling that somehow his answer was very important to her. He reached for the brandy bottle once more, glad of the distraction.

"God knows. Go back to work, get on wi' chasing scum until it's time to retire." And think about Alex, every single minute of every single shitty, endless day for the rest of my worthless life, he thought to himself, despair sweeping over him once more.

"You could retire early. Move out here permanently…..help me run the bar?"

Ava slipped her hand back into his as she spoke and his heart sank as he realised what she was trying to say. Bugger. Why did women insist on doing this? No matter how simple you thought things were between you, no matter how much they told you that they were fine with being friends, there was always some emotional issue lurking in the bloody background. Still, it was good to know that she really did care about him. At least someone thought he was worth sharing their life with. He squeezed her fingers affectionately as he searched for the right words to let her down gently, feeling a surge of relief as the telephone rang, granting him a reprieve.

"Yes, he's here… hold on…," he heard her say as she held the receiver out to him. "It's Charlie. He wants to speak to you, but the line is so bad I can hardly understand him."

Gene rolled his eyes. Typical; the phone service was shocking unreliable out here in the sticks. Where was bloody Busby when you needed him. Mystified as to why Charlie would bother to ring Ava's in search of him, Gene took the phone. "Charlie? What the hell do you want? Is everything OK?"

"…'s fine…been try… to reach …… since yesterday evenin'….." Charlie's voice disappeared into a series of echoing, screechy whistles as the phone line cracked up. "met her…. Railway…cracking piece of skirt…..she's bloody incredible!….. lucky sod….she didn't ………gave her …don't go…..she's…..meet….." Gene held the receiver way from his ear as the whistling sound became too loud to be comfortable.

"Charlie? I can't hear a bloody word you're saying! Sodding phone's playing up! I'll try and call you later!" He shouted his reply in a vain attempt to make Charlie hear him, and banged down the phone, annoyed that his old friend seemed to be talking utter bollocks……cracking piece of skirt? What was Charlie thinking? He wasn't the type to stray…not any more anyway. He had a dodgy heart these days and playing away with some bird he'd met in the pub couldn't be good for his health, not mention how much damage Peggy would inflict on him if she ever found out.

He turned his attention back to Ava, who was standing the in doorway, cigarette in hand. He watched as she took a drag, his eyes tracing the luscious curves of her breasts, the jut of her hip as she leaned against the door frame looking just like Bridget bloody Bardot with all that blonde hair and those dark smoky lashes.

She was damned sexy, there was no doubt about that, and he could feel his body reacting to her instinctively despite his misery. Most men would jump at the chance she'd offered and it would be all too easy to fall into her bed and into her life, but it wasn't what he really wanted and, inevitably, it would all end in tears if he tried to pretended otherwise. He'd learned his lesson that way with Lisa and to a certain extent with Marion as well; just because a relationship was convenient, didn't mean it was right.

Gene jammed his hands into his pockets as he wandered over to her, hating what he now had to do. He leaned against the door frame, kicking one heel against the wood in an attempt to cover up how awkward he felt.

"Look Ava, about what you saying before…it's a nice offer" Christ that sounded patronising. "I mean…. it's more than a nice offer… it's….the thing is…me and a bar…it's not a good combination…all that alcohol…..and I don't think….."

He stopped, despising himself for making excuses to someone who was such a good friend to him. Even he could hear how fucking crass and pathetic he sounded. She deserved the truth, he thought, letting his words flow freely and honestly.

"It wouldn't be enough for me, luv..…_you _wouldn't be enough. You'd always be second best and that's not fair on either of us. It's not your fault…it's just how it is. I'll always want Alex," he still couldn't bring himself to say the word love, "but she doesn't want me….. and that's the end of it."

Ava studied him sadly for a minute before giving a rueful shrug.

"Well, it was worth a try." Her tone was light but Gene knew what it must have cost her to ask him something like that. Ava was like him in many respects and she rarely revealed her true feelings. He felt a sharp sense of regret as she closed the space between them and leaned forward to kiss him on the lips. "Goodbye Gene."

He nodded in reply, recognising the dismissal, knowing that everything had irrevocably changed between them. "Bye Ava. Take care."

As he slouched down the steps from her flat to the street, nodding good morning to Carlos, Ava's young barman, who was busy stacking empty beer crates, Gene was mildly surprised at just how unsteady he was on his feet. Mind you, he'd drunk the best part of a bottle of brandy already this morning, and he still hadn't entirely sobered-up from last night's drinking session yet, either. What the buggering hell was he going to do now, he wondered. It was still morning, too early for lunch, not that he was hungry anyway, and he didn't fancy going back home just yet. His face brightened slightly as a familiar black Mercedes slid round the corner and a silver-haired old man leaned out of the driver's window.

"Senor Gene! I have been looking for you! You want to go fishing?"

Benito Moralez– retired Chief of Police, and the perfect person to while away the day with. Gene climbed into the car and soon found himself comfortably ensconced in a chair on the deck of Benito's yacht, a beer in one hand and a fishing line slung out over the side of the boat.

In his heart, Gene was well aware that fishing with Benito was the same as playing golf with Charlie; just a displacement activity that enabled him to have drink whilst he pretended to be doing something else. He could justify it to himself that way. It wasn't really drinking, he was indulging in a hobby that just happened to involve a few beers, that was all.

He liked Benito a great deal. He was good company; full of the most hair-razing recollections of run-ins with Moroccan drug smugglers, salacious stories of the many women that had succumbed to his charms, and an unending source of local gossip. Not that Gene was that bothered about who was shagging whom in the ex-pat community but Benito's stories almost always managed to make him laugh.

Except that today his heart really wasn't in hearing which ex-banker manager had been discovered wearing his wife's knickers at a cocktail party. Nor was it in gawping at the long-legged, scantily clad woman who were always to be found on the decks of the yachts, soaking up all the admiring glances along with the sun, and so he leaned back in his seat, pulled his borrowed Panama over his eyes and let Benito ramble on whilst he lost himself in his own morose thoughts.

Benito shot him a look of concern. "You are sad today, Senor Gene? How can you be sad when you have just left the bed of the sexiest woman in the village. You are feeling the pressure, perhaps?"

Gene looked confused, pulling his mind back from wondering what Alex was doing at that moment, half a world away from him. He tipped the hat back and frowned at his drinking companion. "What are you on about Benito? Pressure?"

"Of performance! It is understandable when you are sleeping with such a fine woman. You do not need to worry so much. I have just the thing…it is an old recipe given to me by my Grandfather and it never fails… you can keep at it for hours…"

Gene suddenly realised what the older man was talking about. "Don't be ridiculous! I am not shagging Ava! Not any more, anyway. We're friends these days. She made me breakfast, that's all." He sniffed pugnaciously. "And if I was shagging her, there would be absolutely no trouble whatsoever with my performance, thank you very much!"

Benito looked sceptical. "Well , something is bothering you. You are not yourself today. It is a woman, do not try to tell me no… I know that only a woman can make a man feel so bad." He handed Gene the bottle of single malt and indicated that he should pour himself another drink.

Gene gave him a bitter smile. "You're right on that score. This particular woman has made me feel like utter shit."

"She has ripped your heart out and trampled on it? Torn it into a thousand pieces and laughed at your agony?" Benito waved his arms expansively and slopped his drink across his beautiful hand-made leather shoes. Being a Chief of Police evidently paid well in sunny Spain. Either that or more likely, Benito had feathered his own nest shamelessly before he'd retired. "She is a she-devil and does not deserve what you have offered her. You should curse her name to the sky, Senor Gene. Curse her for a hundred years."

Gene began to laugh, despite his misery. They'd been "fishing" for a few hours now and everything was beginning to feel distinctly fuzzy round the edges, especially since they'd switched from drinking beer to whisky. "Jesus, Benito. I'd hate to get on the wrong side of you. You're starting to worry me now with all this cursing bollocks." He hiccuped. "I don't want to curse her. I just want her back…. Not that that's going to happen. She's happy wi' another bloke now."

Although even as he said it, he could see once more, the look of panic it Alex's eyes as she'd told him what a good man Oliver was. Try as he might to forget it, he kept going over that one moment between them in the car. What would have happened if he _had_ told her how he felt? Would things have been different? He snorted, disgusted with himself for entertaining such ridiculous fantasies. Why on earth would she have chosen him when she'd had a man who was younger, better-looking and far, far richer waiting for her at the altar.

Benito frowned, peering drunkenly at Gene from under the brim of his battered old sailing cap. "She left you for another? Is she mad! How could she do such a thing. You are a lion amongst men, Senor Gene! No-one could match up to you!" He paused, eyes narrowed, obviously considering what he was about to say next. "Are you sure it wasn't anything to do with your sexual performance? If it was, I can give you the recipe of my Grandfather…."

"Oh for crying out loud! No, it wasn't anything to do wi' that! Just shut up a minute and I'll tell you what happened." For the second time that day, Gene found himself sharing the secrets of his innermost heart as Benito sat and listened to him in silence. When he'd finished, the older man gave a huge sigh, leaning over and clapping Gene on the shoulder as he did so.

"Senor Gene, I do not know what to say. I'm sorry, my friend, that you have lost such a woman as you describe. And such a woman that not even the lovely Ava can replace her." He shook his head sadly. "You know the mistake you made? You gave her too much rein and she bolted."

"_What?_" Gene wondered what the hell the weather had to do with his relationship with Alex.

"Woman are like horses, my friend. Unless you know them well, you sit down hard in the saddle and ride them with a short rein. You let them know who's boss. If you let them have their head, even for a little while, they get scared and bolt. And sometimes you can't stop them, no matter what you do."

Gene nodded in agreement, despite the fact that he had absolutely no idea about how to ride a horse, realising as he did so that the motion of the yacht was beginning to make him feel sick; all that drink on an empty, hung-over stomach hadn't helped either. He stood up carefully, trying to adjust the sway of the deck and almost falling over in the process. Fuck! He really was drunk. He definitely needed to be somewhere where the floor didn't heave up and down quite so much.

"I'm goin' home. See you later, Benito." He dropped Benito's Panama on his vacant seat, patted his friend on the shoulder and staggered over to the side of the yacht to try and find the ladder that led down to the jetty.

Benito laughed as he watched him. "Other side, Senor Gene, unless you want to swim."


	8. Only You

**Characters belong to Kudos (except for Ava - she's ALL mine) and the lyrics are the property to Vince Clarke**

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"**All I needed was the love you gave  
All I needed for another day  
And all I ever knew  
Only you"**

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_Putting her empty coffee cup back on the table, Alex closed her eyes and let out a slow sigh of utter defeat. He wasn't here. Gene wasn't here and what was worse, no-one seemed to have even heard of him. This wasn't how she'd imagined it would be! In her head, Gene was always going to be here, sitting at the bar. He'd see her walk through the door and he'd sweep her off her feet, overcome with joy, and then he'd carry her off somewhere, where they'd rip each other's clothes off and shag each other senseless…….and everything would be OK again. _

_She wasn't too sure what happened after that – her fantasy went a bit fuzzy round the edges. She'd no wish to stay in the sort of hotel that Gene would have no doubt booked himself into. It would be all 'Benidom Package Holiday' and 'Tonight is Cabaret Night!'; she was sure of it. Maybe she could persuade him to find somewhere a little classier for the last three nights of his holiday; if there was any such thing as classier in this place. She'd not really paid much attention to the scenery on her way here but as far as she could tell, the actual village of San Sebastian was pretty much untouched by the tourist industry apart from the inevitable sprawl of holiday developments between the village and the marina. _

_After an interminably long and boring taxi journey from the airport, she'd finally found the bar that matched Charlie's description. He'd declined to give her the actual address of where Gene was staying. "You know what he's like. He plays his cards close to his chest and if he finds out I've been letting his secrets out, he'll bloody kill me." _

_Alex had nodded in agreement, not minding in the least that Charlie was being so cagey. After all, Gene had never mentioned his holidays in Spain, so it was pretty obvious that he didn't want anyone to know about them. Instead, Charlie had written down the name of the village, and described the bar that Gene frequented in the main square. "There's no sign, but it's got a red door and a Danish flag hanging up outside,"_

_Trouble was, when she'd arrived here, what she'd actually got, in the absence of her "An Officer & A Gentleman" day-dream, was a bar containing no-one but a few toothless old men playing cards, and a barman. Granted, he was tall, dark and handsome, but he was absolutely no use to her at all, as his English appeared to be non-existent when one strayed off the subject of what drink you wanted to order. She'd asked him about Gene, mentioning Charlie's name as well, thinking that it might help but he'd just stared at her, finally shrugging his shoulders and disappearing into the room behind the bar. _

_She'd heard him talking in Spanish to someone in there, but he hadn't reappeared and so she'd made her way over to a table in the corner, fighting the feelings of exhaustion and despair that were in danger of overwhelming her completely. She didn't even have a bloody photo of Gene, she cursed inwardly. How the hell was she supposed to find him when no-one seemed to speak English. She wondered if I the whole thing was just some elaborate wind-up; an ex-colleague's idea of a joke. God, she hoped not. She'd come too far and spent too much money on flights and taxis for it all to be a wild goose chase. _

_After her encounter with Charlie in the Railway Arms, she'd arrived at Manchester airport at six the next morning and booked herself on the earliest available flight out to Alicante. Charlie had told her that Gene seemed to be in a bad way. "He's drinking far too much. You need to get over there luv, and sort him out." She spent the rest of the evening listening to Charlie reminisce about the "glory days" in Manchester, when he and Gene had been the toast of the division. "Christ, we got up to some tricks, there's no doubt about that. Mind you, he was far worse than I ever was. Sam Tyler turning up was the best thing that ever happened to Gene; saved his neck on more than a few occasions. He was a broken man after Sam died." Charlie had looked up at Alex, his face serious, "He'll never admit it, but Gene needs someone in his life to take care of him. He's not very good at being on his own. That's when the drink takes over and to be perfectly honest with you, Peggy and I are worried about him. If he carries on at the rate he is, there's a good chance he'll end up drinking himself to death, like his old man did."_

_After hearing what Charlie had to say, Alex's mind had been made up. She didn't care if Gene only had few days left until he returned to the UK; she needed to get to Spain and find him as soon as possible. __She'd found herself sharing the plane with hoards of excited families off for their annual fortnight in the sun and that had made her feel even more lonely and disjointed than she usually did. She'd watched them as they boarded; all those people, with their loved ones, all with some sense of belonging, some sort of anchor to their daily lives. By contrast, she was completely alone, and she attracted more then a few curious stares. _

_She'd taken her seat next to a small girl of about four who'd taken no notice of her at all until the aircraft had taken off. It was only when the excitement of being on a plane had ebbed away slightly that she'd spoken._

"_Are you going on holiday?" she'd asked Alex, her eyes wide with delight. "I am. I'm goin' to a big hotel by the beach and I'm going to have ice-cream everyday."_

_Alex had smiled back. "Lucky you. No, I'm not going on holiday." _

_The little girl had looked perplexed at Alex's answer. "Where are you goin' then? This plane's goin' on holiday. My Daddy says so."_

"_I'm going to try and find a friend of mine." Alex told her. "A very important friend."_

"_Is he on holiday then?"_

"_Yes, he is." _

_The little girl had seemed satisfied at this. " Is he goin' to have ice-cream everyday?" _

_Alex had laughed. "No, I don't think so. I'm not sure he even likes ice-cream."_

_Horrified at the very idea of not liking ice cream, the girl had thought for a moment. "Well, what does he like then?"_

_Alex thought for a moment. "Curly Wurlys."_

"_What else?" _

"_Beer and whisky…. and lots of other grown-up stuff like that."_

"_My Daddy likes beer. He gets all happy and smiley when he drinks it….Is that what your your friend does?"_

"_Sometimes. Most of the time he's very grumpy, and very rude."_

"_Is __he__ sad then?"_

"_Yes, I think he is....__. __"_

"_But he's still your friend?" The girl had watched her closely._

_Alex had given her a wobbly smile. "I hope so," she'd replied before turning away to gaze from the window, not wanting the girl to see how upset she was. She remembered the way Annie and Charlie had both talked about Gene as a man who'd lost everything, and their descriptions of how he'd used to be had only reinforced her realisation that Gene was as lost and alone as she was. The familiar world that had been his kingdom for so long was gone forever and __London was as alien to him as it was to her. _

_For a short time, everything had been so different; they'd found each other and life had seemed so full of possibility.....and then everything had gone wrong. She'd messed things up so badly…….she had to find him……she had to put things right. She looked up from her reverie to find the card-players still watching her with open curiosity. _

_Shrugging off her leather jacket and hooking it over the back of her chair, Alex longed to be able to change into something cooler. She'd fallen asleep in the taxi on the way from the airport and now she felt drained and more than a little light-headed from the heat. Her boots, jeans and slash-neck cable-knit jumper were perfect in terms of fashion but were clearly not the ideal outfit for travelling in Spain. Trouble was she had nothing else with her that was suitable for this weather. It was ironic that only yesterday, she'd been cursing the fact that her clothes had been inadequate protection against Manchester's rain and cold. _

_Well, she'd waited all day there, so she'd do the same here. It was all she could do. Charlie had told her that Gene was staying in this village, and that he drank in this bar, so surely it couldn't be that long before he turned up. She ran her fingers through her hair, knowing that it probably needed a good brush. She was willing to bet that her make-up was all over the place too in all this heat. _

_Alex watched with envy as a tall, blonde woman emerged from the back room of the bar, dressed perfectly for this climate in frayed denim shorts and a low-cut, black vest top, her hair twisted casually up in a knot at the back of her head. Leaning on the bar, she turned slightly to ask the barman a question and then stared over at Alex as he indicated towards her table in response. Alex looked away, disconcerted, sensing something strangely aggressive in her scrutiny._

_Members of her own sex didn't usually intimidate Alex; she was far too sure of her own worth for that, but there was something about this woman, with her air of self-assurance and her frankly glorious body, with all its ripe, sun-golden curves, that made Alex acutely aware of her own less than perfect appearance. She felt sallow and exhausted in comparison to her effortless beauty. _

_To her surprise, the woman crossed the room, to where Alex was sitting. "Oh great," thought Alex sourly. "I'm a hot, sweaty wreck with bad hair and terrible make-up, and now I have to sit next to a woman who'd make even Bridget Bardot feel inadequate. It had better be worth it when you finally do show up, Gene Hunt."_

_Pulling out a chair, the blonde woman lit a cigarette and fixed Alex with a fierce blue stare. "You are Detective Inspector Alexandra Drake, yes?" _

_Alex caught the accent and surmised correctly that this woman was the reason for the Danish flag outside the bar. _

"_Yes, I am." she replied cautiously, wondering why this woman was addressing her by her full rank, and more to the point, how she knew what her name was._

"_You are looking for Gene I think." She let the smoke trickle slowly from her mouth as she spoke, looking down her nose at Alex and __Alex's hackles rose instantly at the sound of his name on another woman's lips. The implication was very clear; she knew him well enough to use his first name and she wanted Alex to know this._

"_Yes." Alex glared back at her, wishing furiously that she'd taken the time to smarten herself up before she'd started asking questions. She never usually let herself get this unkempt. Well, that wasn't strictly true. In her former existence, she'd never worn much make-up, but there was something about the fashion of the 1980's that demanded you wore frosted eye shadow and lashings of mascara at all times. Faced with such cosmetic challenges, Alex hadn't found it too hard to develop a liking for the contents of the make-up counter at Boots and Gene had always seemed to approve of her appearance, which had certainly helped matters._

"_Why do you want to find him?" The cornflower eyes burned into hers and Alex found herself at a loss to even know where to begin. She wasn't going to tell this stranger, who said Gene's name with such an air of casual intimacy, anything about why she was here, but she found herself trying to explain things a little, nevertheless. _

"_I want to tell him….. I need to tell him that I didn't…" She stopped, unable to go on for fear of breaking down and she would not let herself do something that weak and embarrassing in public, and especially not in front of this unsettlingly beautiful female. "To say sorry." she said finally, filled with desolation._

_The other woman studied her carefully for a moment. "No….. That is not all of it." she declared firmly, her brilliant blue eyes flashing with scorn.. "Sorry doesn't bring all this way. Sorry doesn't make you sit in a bar waiting for a man who may or may not turn up. Sorry doesn't make you look like you haven't slept in days…and…" she reached over and grabbed Alex's left hand, "Sorry doesn't stop you wearing a wedding ring." She looked up at Alex's face, her expression severe as she tapped the third finger of Alex's left hand. "I know that you should be on your honeymoon at this moment, so tell me honestly, why are you here instead? Tell me what's so important about Gene that you have come all this way to find him."_

_Alex gazed at her in shock. What was it about Gene and his apparent preference for __surrounding himself with ballsy, forthright women? Alex grimaced as she realised that she could easily include herself in that description. First Annie Tyler had laid down the law to her and now this fierce Danish beauty was doing the same thing! And how the hell did she know all these things about her? Alex cursed silently as she worked it out; Bloody Gene. He'd obviously been talking; probably when he was drunk. It better not have been pillow-talk though, she thought savagely. A sudden terror gripped her. Maybe it was all too late? Maybe this woman was Gene's latest conquest? She was certainly protective enough of him to be involved with him in some way._

"_I don't understand" she queried, her voice catching a little at the thought of this woman in bed with Gene, her honey-gold hair brushing over his skin as she…..Stop it, Alex! Get a bloody grip. You have no idea who or what this woman is. Just calm down and see what she has to say. Alex dug her fingernails into her palm to stop herself from shaking. _

_The woman sighed irritably. "It's not a difficult question. Tell me about Gene. What it is that makes him so special to you?"_

_Alex frowned, wondering why she was being asked to do this, but she needed to find Gene and if talking about him was going to help her achieve her goal, then she was prepared to humour this rather strange woman._

"_He's almost impossible to describe. What do you want to know?" she asked, afraid that she'd say the wrong thing._

_Her interrogator tutted, shaking her head. "It's no wonder you have both ended up in this mess," she muttered to herself. "Look, start with something simple. What colour are his eyes?" She sat back, folding her arms in challenge, waiting for Alex's answer._

"_Blue" said Alex without any hesitation. "Well, most of the time they are. Although depending on the light, they can also be silver, or dark grey…or even a sort of smokey, bluey/purple…..they change all the time. It really all depends what mood he's in, I suppose."_

_She stopped as the woman began to laugh, seemingly delighted with her answer._

"_What's the matter? Have I said the wrong thing?" Alex was worried that she would never find Gene at this rate. The woman was quite clearly playing some sort of game with her and it angered her that she had no idea of the rules or what the outcome would be._

"_No, no. You've said exactly the right thing. Carry on. Tell me some more about Gene."_

_Alex thought for a while. Despite all her analytical skills, Gene was very difficult to put into words; he was so bloody complex and yet so simple at the same time and it made her head hurt if she tried to capture the essence of what him made him so irresistibly attractive to her. On paper he was so not the sort of man she would have ever fallen for, and yet, when faced with the reality of him, she'd been unable to resist. _

_She started with the obvious things, the things about him that drove her insane. "He's rude, arrogant and conceited……..Always insists he's right even when he's quite clearly not. He makes smutty remarks and refers to woman as "birds" or "tarts"…..He smokes too much, drinks far too much….. He's stubborn, childish and completely ungracious most of the time. He shouts and roars at his officers, rarely listens to their opinions" She frowned and contradicted herself, "…..no that's not true, actually….. he does listen, sometimes, but only if you shout back loudly enough." _

"_So you argue?" asked her companion, an odd look on her face, as if the whole conversation was some hugely amusing private joke._

"_Constantly."_

"_What about?"_

"_Anything and everything. We are total opposites. Light & dark...... sweet & sour..........."_

_Alex paused as the barman delivered two cups of coffee to their table, before gathering her thoughts and continuing as she gazed out of the door of the bar. She spoke hesitantly, feeling her way through the mass of contradictions that made up the man she loved._

"_He's intelligent, but for some reason he feels the need to hide that fact behind crass remarks…… He cares passionately about his team, although he rarely shows it. He's intensely loyal and very honourable in his own way….. He can be remarkably kind and gentle when he wants to, and at other times his temper is so uncontrollable that it's frightening….. He likes to think of himself as this strong, capable man who's role in life is to protect others, but I've seen him look so lost and lonely sometimes…." _

_Alex fell silent as she remembered Gene's face when she'd told him it was over between them. Why had she done that? She was the one that was supposed to know how to read people. Why hadn't she taken the time to work out what was going on in Gene's head? Truth was, she'd panicked. She'd been so worried about making herself vulnerable that she'd just ignored the hidden signals and had run away from the relationship instead of trying to sort things out. _

_She began to speak again, her voice wavering as all the disappointment that she'd tried to suppress since she'd arrived here welled up inside her again. She'd ceased to care about about the fact that the woman was listening to her every word; she just needed to say how she felt. _

"_He has long legs and strong, broad shoulders and I love it that even when I'm wearing heels, he's still slightly taller than me. He never bothers about his appearance but somehow he always manages to look gorgeous, even when he's rumpled and unshaven from working all night on a case. His hair flops over his forehead and I want to brush it back for him all the time. …….. He makes me laugh and I love the look on his face when he teases me….. I even like the smell of the cigarettes that he smokes. I love the way that underneath all the brash swagger, he's sometimes unsure of himself."_

_Alex took a sip of her coffee, smiling softly as she pictured the man she loved. "He always looks so grim and yet when he smiles, it transforms him. ….it lights him up, somehow…. and then it's impossible not to lose yourself in those eyes of his….. He has beautiful hands...... I love the feel of them on my skin. ……His voice makes me melt when he speaks to me softly, and the taste of his mouth makes me weak at the knees…He's the only person who's ever made me feel truly safe in this world……. and I've realised that I don't ever want to be without him." Alex stopped talking, suddenly uncomfortably aware that the blonde woman was watching her intently. She felt foolish for having revealed so much, but to her surprise, the woman just nodded, a strangely wistful smile on her face._

"_So, it isn't really 'sorry' that brings you here, but love. Love makes all of us do strange __things, Alexandra Drake. You didn't get married, did you? Because it's Gene that has your heart."_

_Alex nodded, staring into her coffee cup, unable to met the bright blue eyes._

"_Good......" The woman ground her cigarette into the ashtray and held out her hand. " I'm Ava Eriksen. I've heard a lot about you, Alex."_

_Alex shook the proffered hand cautiously. "So you do know Gene then…obviously."_

_Ava nodded. "Yes, I do. How did you find out that he was here?"_

"_Charlie Armstrong gave me this address. I don't suppose you know where Gene is at the moment, do you? I really do need to find him."_

"_No. I don't know where he is now," Her abrupt reply made Alex's heart sink and she watched in acute disappointment as Ava stood up and crossed over to the bar, pausing to talk to the barman before reaching for something behind the till. When she turned back, Alex saw that there was a set of car keys dangling from Ava's index finger. "But I can take you to where he's going to be. Come on." _

_Obediently, Alex picked up her bag and followed Ava from the bar, making her way round the corner to where an old, battered and very dirty Land Rover was parked at the side of the street. She wasn't going to argue or ask questions as it was quite clear that Ava did things in her own particular way. If she had to trust her in order to find Gene, then so be it._

_Ava wrenched open the Land Rover door and gestured for Alex to get in the other side. "You have to slam the door hard to get it shut," she told her. "I keep telling Gene he should get it fixed, but he never does." _

_Alex stared at Ava in disbelief. "This is Gene's?" _

"_Yes. You are surprised at that. Why?"_

"_It's just so different from the car he drives at home. The Quattro is his pride and joy. He doesn't let so much as a speck of dirt get on the paintwork….ever."_

_Ava looked over at Alex, her expression serious. "I think maybe, that when Gene is here, he is a very different person from the man you know. There is another side to him, perhaps?" _

_Alex said nothing, aware that what Ava had said seemed to be very true. She was a little bit worried now; worried about what she would find, about Gene's reaction to her, about exactly what Ava's relationship was to Gene. She forced herself not to think about any of it and concentrated on looking out of the window, staring at the unfamiliar buildings as they drove by. _

_They were soon out of the narrow, twisting streets of the old village, and almost immediately, the rows of newly built holiday villas stretched away from them on both sides. Alex kept expecting Ava to stop at one of these or, more likely, at one of the many small apartment complexes scattered in between them. There didn't seem to be any big hotels here, so Gene would no doubt choose to stay in one of them; one that served a full English breakfast, and provided evening entertainment at the bar. _

_Alex's sense of disbelief grew as they left the modern houses behind and began to climb up into the hills, turning off the tarmac road and bumping their way along a rough farm track. _

"_I can see why he needs the Land Rover," she said faintly as Ava swung the vehicle round a tight hairpin bend, the road dropping sharply away from them on Alex's side._

"_You can see why I won't let him drive it home when he's had too much to drink either." Ava replied as the track straightened out for a few hundred yards before twisting and turning up once more. They passed a farmhouse and Ava waved a greeting to the woman __feeding chickens in the yard as they roared past, finally stopping at the end of the track, beside a high stone wall. Brightly coloured bougainvillea flowers hung down over it from the other side and Alex could just make out a stone-tiled roof. Never in all her days would she have thought that Gene would have chosen such a place for a holiday._

"_Here you are." Ava told her, turning off the noisy engine. "La Roca del Leon."_

_Alex didn't quite catch what she said, as she was too busy staring down the valley at the incredible view. "So this is where Gene will be?" she asked eventually, needing to make sure that Ava had understood exactly what she'd meant when she'd said she'd needed to find Gene. Surely he wouldn't choose to stay here, half-way up a hill, in the middle of nowhere?_

"_Yes? What is so odd about that?"_

"_Nothing. I mean, this place is beautiful….. really beautiful. I just can't see Gene choosing to book somewhere like this for his holiday, that's all."_

_Ava regarded her solemnly. "As I said before, maybe Gene is a different man here? Anyway, he hasn't booked this place. He owns it. _

"_Really?" Alex queried in astonished surprise. "What did you call it just now? … in Spanish?" Her brain had finally caught up with the conversation and a familiar sounding word had registered. _

"_La Rocca del Leon. Hundreds of years ago this area was ruled by a man known as The Lion of San Sebastian, and the mountain is still called The Rock of the Lion."_

_Alex smiled, in spite of her worries and her exhaustion. "Trust Gene to find somewhere totally appropriate to live," she murmured as she turned to Ava. "Thank you…for bringing me here." She undid the Land Rover door, picking up her bag in one hand._

"_Wait." Ava looked at her levelly. "What are you going to do now? Sit outside until he arrives home?"_

_Alex shrugged. "I suppose so. I hadn't really given it much thought"_

_Ava fished in the back pocket of her shorts and drew out another bunch of keys. "It's going to rain, you know. Look at the clouds out over the sea. You'll be much more comfortable if you wait inside." She picked a couple of keys from the bunch and twisted them from the metal ring, holding them out to Alex._

_Alex didn't know what to say as a sudden wave of savage fury surged through her at Ava's casual offer. She had keys. The keys to a bloody house that Alex didn't even know about! Gene had told her nothing about this part of his life and now this beautiful blonde stranger was holding out door keys to her!_

_Was she the reason he'd kept silent about his little jaunts to Spain? Maybe he'd always been living a double life; carrying on a relationship with her in London, whilst all the time he'd had this gorgeous Scandinavian blonde waiting for him out here! Alex felt the humiliation and anger burning at the back of her throat as she struggled to work out what to do next. Part of her wanted to stay, but the greater part of her wanted to walk back down the track, find a taxi and get to the airport as fast as she possibly could._

_Ava watched her, her knowing expression revealing she could tell exactly what Alex was thinking._

"_I have keys because I look after the house when Gene's not here. Charlie has a set too." Ava said calmly. "I won't lie to you, Alex. Gene and I were lovers for a while when he first moved here, but that stopped well over a year or so ago. Around about the time he met you, I suspect, from what I can work out. We are good friends now, that's all." She pressed the keys into Alex's hand. "Go inside and wait for him. Running away again won't solve anything and will only bring you both more pain."_

_Alex closed her fingers round them, feeling her anger subside, longing to let herself into the peace and quiet of Gene's house and wait for him to arrive home. _

_To her consternation, Ava got out of the Land Rover as well, slamming the door behind her. "Don't worry I'm not staying. If I hurry I can get back before the rain comes." she said dryly and Alex realised that her feelings must have shown all too clearly on her face. _

_Ava turned to walk away, before she swung round again and regarded Alex gravely. " Take good care of him." she ordered, her voice suddenly low and fierce with emotion, and then she was gone, striding down the steeply twisting hill path before Alex could even form a reply._

_Alex stared after her for a moment, before turning to unlock the door in the high whitewashed wall and step slowly inside._


	9. Is There Something I Should Know

**Firstly, sorry for the huge delay between chapters. Life has suddenly been so busy over the last few weeks that I've hardly had time to write anything, let alone work out the complexities of both POV's in this little tale! **

**Secondly, I must apologise (yet again) for being utterly dreadful at replying to your reviews. I'm so, so sorry. It's really bad of me, especially as they are all so lovely, and inspire me so much. All I can say is thank you, I'm sorry that I am a bad, bad Cat, and I will do my best to put it right. **

**So, here it is, the next chapter and I'll hope you'll forgive me a small reference to a line of Richard Curtis dialogue in the opening sentence. If M&A can scatter them throughout Ep2, S2, then I feel can put one in here. ;-)**

**As ever – Kudos own the characters, and the lyrics are the property of Duran Duran. **

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"**I made a break, I run out yesterday, **

**Tried to find my mountain hideaway.......**

**Please, please tell me now.**

**Is there something I should know......**

**Do you feel the same, 'cos you don't let it show."**

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"Carlos! Where the sod's my sodding Land Rover?"

Gene strode into the bar, his face twisted in a scowl that only grew deeper when he saw that it wasn't Carlos behind the bar, but his cousin Esteban. Shit. He'd never get a straight answer now. Esteban made Chris Skelton look like a contender for bloody Mastermind, and his grasp of his own native tongue was tenuous, never mind about English.

"Land Rover?" Gene barked, resisting the urge to mime the action of driving. He might be drunk but he wasn't going to forget his dignity.

Esteban shrugged, smiling happily, as he polished the glass in his hand. "No entiendo – lo siento"

"My… Land…. Rover?" Gene raised his voice and spoke slowly. Surely he must be able to understand what he was asking? "Where…. Is…. It? Has… Ava…. Taken….. It?"

"Lo…. siento. No…. hablo…… inglés."

Gene exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to grab Esteban by the throat and shake the answer from him. He leaned over the bar, searching by the side of the cash register where Ava habitually kept his keys when she'd confiscated them from him. There was no sign of them.

Bollocks. He just wanted the bloody Land Rover so that he could go home and fall into bed, but it would seem that Ava had borrowed it to go gallivanting. Wearily, he walked back to the door of the bar and looked out, searching for alternative transport. There was only one taxi in the village and Andres always waited for his customers outside Ava's . If he wasn't there, you had two choices; wait or walk. The main square was deserted and there was absolutely no sign of Andres or his car.

Bugger.

"Esteban, where's Andres?"

There it was again; the idiot grin and the casual shrug.

Gene took a deep breath. "Taxi?" he tried, teeth clenched.

"No."

"Why not? Where's he gone?"

Esteban said something but Gene hadn't a hope hell of understanding it. He caught the words "Alicante" and "aeropuerto" and deduced from them that Andres was probably going to be unavailable for the rest of the afternoon. "Well, when's he back from the airport?"

"Lo Siento. No hablo inglés."

Jesus Christ!He did on bloody purpose! Gene was convinced of it. English was easy. Everyone could speak it if they only made a little bit of an effort. Then going abroad wouldn't be so damn complicated because everyone would know how to speak properly.

"Where's Carlos? ……..Caaarrrrlooossss?" He must know the bloody answer to that!

Esteban mimed something, raising his hands up and down to his mouth before picking up a whisky bottle and proffering it in Gene's direction.

Eating?...... Lunch? "Almuerzo?" Gene offered, tentatively and Esteban grinned in delight.

"Si! Almuerzo!"

Gene sighed and shook his head in disbelief. Christ, he must be drunk if he was actually trying to communicate in Spanish. He waved away Esteban's offer of yet more alcohol as it looked like he was going to have to walk home and he needed to sober up a little before the attempt. "No, no more drink…... I need coffee."

From the other side of the room, the geriatric poker players beckoned him over to them enthusiastically. Gene hesitated, torn between the lure of the cards and lure of his bed. He was exhausted and he couldn't remember a time in the last few months when he'd gone to sleep sober. Drink didn't help him to get any rest though; it just caused him to fall into some sort of alcohol-induced coma for a few hours, before he woke feeling as knackered as ever. The thought of his huge, comfortable bed, just waiting for him to sink into, won over the desire to try his luck at cards. He downed the coffee that Esteban had poured for him and shook his head regretfully.

"Not today, lads. I need to go to bed."

One of the old men; Fidel, he thought it was, laughed, evidently finding this highly amusing and said something to the others which set them all off. He then pantomimed a woman with his hands, one with curves in all the right places, before nodding over at Gene. Gene frowned back at them. He had no idea what they were on about.

"My bed..." he told them again. "I'm going to bed."

This produced a further outbreak of hilarity and Gene was worried that one of them would do himself an injury, he was cackling so hard. What had he said that was so damn funny? He knew that Fidel spoke a tiny amount of English but surely the word bed couldn't be _that_ amusing? Maybe it meant something else in Spanish? Never mind. He tried standing up, testing his legs for wobbliness before sitting down again heavily and holding out his coffee cup.

"Give us another coffee, Esteban. The bloody floor's still movin' up and down."

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_God, it was hot. She was boiling in these bloody clothes and sitting by the swimming pool was pure torture. Alex fanned her hand in front of her face, desperate for some sort of breeze as the ice blue water sparkled enticingly, the little ripples at the edge of the curving steps seeming to beckon her, trying their best to lure her into their cool, welcoming embrace. The temperature was even hotter than it had been when she'd arrived in the village; the air still and heavy as the storm clouds grew darker. _

_She really wasn't sure she should actually be sitting there at all, really. Being there without Gene's permission was making her edgy and the threat of the approaching storm was only adding to her nervous mood. After she'd stepped through the door in the wall, she'd spent a good couple of minutes in the small, bougainvillea-filled courtyard, just gathering the courage to open the door of the house. _

_Eventually, curiosity had won over her feeling of unease, and she'd turned the key in lock of the old, wooden door, gazing around her in delight at the unexpected loveliness of the room she'd found herself in. It was almost austere in its simplicity, with a basic kitchen at one end, a battered wooden table and chairs in the middle, and a deep-cushioned sofa positioned in front of an open fireplace at the other._

_The flattened imprint of Gene's head and body had been clearly visible in the piled-up cushions and she'd run her hand over them softly, as if just touching them could bring her closer to him. He obviously spent much of his time here, watching the television. Alone or with company, she'd wondered? An empty bottle of whisky and a single glass stood on the carpet beside the sofa and Alex had felt slightly better. Alone, she'd decided, unless of course, he swigged the whisky straight from the bottle and the glass belonged to his guest. Pushing that unwelcome thought away, Alex had tried to distract herself by investigating the titles of the stack of videos beside the TV. They'd proved to be Westerns or World War 2 epics; the kind of films that you watched on a rainy Sunday afternoon. All except one, which was labelled in her own handwriting. _

"_To Kill A Mockingbird" she'd read. "I wondered where that had got to." __She'd smiled to herself, remembering the time that she and Gene had watched the film, curled up together on the sofa. It was one of her favourites, and as ever, she'd been entranced by Gregory Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch. _

_Gene hadn't been at all keen to watch it, but he'd ended up seemingly hooked by the story and its characters. When she'd cried silly, sentimental tears at the end as she always did, he'd teased them away, scattering soft kisses over her mouth and neck as he'd gently removed her clothes, murmuring to her wordlessly as he'd eased himself slowly inside her, holding her close, making her moan with ecstasy as he'd moved over her and in her. _

_Lost in the memory of that perfect afternoon, Alex had felt her body had begun to ache with remembered desire as she'd recalled the feel of Gene's mouth on hers, how he'd teased her with skillful fingers, coaxing her towards her climax, and how afterwards they'd lain entangled on the sofa, saying nothing, just looking; lost in each other, and somehow, she'd felt complete for the first time in her life. She'd put down the video with a sigh, wondering if they would ever be like that again; if they would ever be able to pick up the pieces of their shattered relationship._

_The nagging feeling of unease about being in Gene's house without his knowledge had returned and she'd looked around her, wondering what she should do with herself until Gene made an appearance. At the kitchen end of the room, she'd noticed an open door and through it she'd spied a small hall, and beyond that, a bathroom. The urge to explore the rest of the house had niggled at her but she'd firmly resisted it. _

_It would be better to wait for him outside in the garden, she'd decided. It was much more neutral and it would look far less like she'd been snooping. Which she was not going to do, she'd told herself sternly as she'd made her way over to the far side of the living room to where three sets of French doors, tightly shuttered against the heat, ran across the back wall. The gaps in the wood sent thin bars of sunlight across the stone-flagged floor and Alex had just been able to glimpse the enticing shimmer of a swimming pool. _

_As she'd moved, she'd caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. Her hair had been a straggly mess and she'd been right about the make-up too; both her eye shadow and foundation were smudged and melting in the heat. She really hadn't wanted to face Gene looking such a state. Still there wasn't much she could do about it really, she'd reasoned, opening one of the shutters and making her way outside. She'd walked to far side of the garden, turning to look back at the house. _

_Arranged all on one level in a L-shape round the central swimming pool, the buildings themselves were very old. Alex guessed that they had once been part of the farm that they'd passed on the way up here; a barn and stables, perhaps? There were two more sets of French doors in the smaller building; bedrooms, she supposed._

_All the rooms were linked by a veranda that wrapped its way round the house, widening out into a pergola at the far end to enclose a small stone-flagged terrace containing a table and chairs, and a wooden bench, perfectly placed to take in the breath-taking view down the hill to the village and the sea beyond it. She'd taken a seat on one of the chairs, straining her ears to for the sound of Gene returning home._

_Now, she glanced at her watch and was surprised at how little time had actually passed. It felt like she'd been sitting there for ages,slowing melting in the intense heat and she was almost at the end of her tether. Restlessly Alex stood up, pacing back and forth, as she looked longingly at the swimming pool. Did she dare? It was just too much of an inviting prospect and once the thought was in her mind, it wouldn't go away. She really needed to cool down and she'd only have a quick dip. Gene wouldn't mind, surely? Without pausing to think about it any longer, Alex stripped down to her bra and knickers and walked down the gently curving steps into the blissfully cool water._

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Gene stopped at the point where the tarmac road ended and the farm track began. Christ, it was hot. He thought longingly of his swimming pool with its icy blue water. Maybe he'd have a swim, cool off a bit before he tried to get some sleep. Mind you, he had to bloody well get home first and that was going to take him a while as three cups of coffee had only gone halfway to sobering him up.

He had two choices; he could follow the track, which took longer, but was far easier on the legs, or he could take the steep path straight up the hill, which was quicker, but may well give him a heart attack. He glanced back over his shoulder at the dark clouds that were racing in from the sea. Whichever route he chose, it was clear that he was going to get soaked. The threat of the impending storm made his mind up for him and Gene cursed creatively as he set off up the track, resigning himself to a long, wet walk. Footsore and drenched he could cope with. Slipping off the side of the narrow path in the pouring rain and breaking his leg was not an option he wanted to explore.

As he walked, he thought about all the things he would say to Ava when he next saw her. How bloody dare she take the Land Rover without asking. She'd always asked to borrow it before. Nothing could be that important that she'd just bugger off in it without a word. He was willing to bet that she'd done it because he'd pissed her off earlier that morning. What was it with woman and their stupid wounded pride? You turned them down and they went and behaved like silly children.

He'd thought that Ava was different, but it would seem that he'd got it wrong yet again. He hadn't slept with her for ages; it was well over a year now and there'd never been any bad feeling between them about it. She'd just made other arrangements in that particular area of her life. He'd really believed that everything was fine between them; that they were OK being friends. So why had things changed now? Was it because he'd admitted that he loved Alex? Who the hell knew; women were a bloody law unto themselves.

Gene kicked savagely at a stone as he walked, scuffing his deck shoes through the dust. What him made him really angry was that he'd thought that he'd actually been pretty decent about the whole thing with Ava. It would have been far easier to string her along with few well-chosen lies, but instead he'd decided to be honest. He couldn't bloody win. Whatever he did, it was the wrong damn thing!

It had been like that with Alex, too. He hadn't know how to give her the answer that she'd wanted, and so she'd got the arse-ache with him and given him the elbow! Granted, he hadn't been entirely blameless, what with him ignoring the question of him moving in, but still, she was the sodding psychologist for God's sake! She should have been able to work it out. And afterwards, he'd tried to do the right thing again; he'd tried really hard to do as she'd asked. She'd still wanted to be friends and he'd done his best, even though it had ripped his soul in two just to talk to her sometimes.

Benito had the right idea. Women were like horses. Too bloody right they were; beautiful to look at, but both mad as a bag of snakes. They had their own peculiar agenda. You never had the first sodding clue what was going on in their heads.

He'd bitten by a horse once. He'd been about sixteen or seventeen, so it must have been just before he joined the police. She'd been bloody female too, come to think of it; Duchess, the coalman's horse. He'd had teeth marks in the flesh of his shoulder for days afterwards, and all because he'd tried to hurry her up a bit because he'd been taking some girl to the pictures that afternoon. Albie, the coalman, had just laughed at him. "It's no good trying to hurry her, lad. She knows her own mind. Leave her be, or she'll take a chunk out of your other arm too."

He'd chucked the job in soon after that. He really didn't trust that bloody mare not to do him serious injury. What had made it worse, was that not only had he been bitten, he'd been stood up by the silly tart he'd invited to pictures as well. Females, he'd learned, be they human or otherwise, were frequently unpredictable and capable of inflicting great pain.

Gene kicked at the stone again and watched gloomily as it bounced over the edge of the track and careered down the the steep slope. That's how he felt at this moment; as thought he was falling so fast he was going to crash. His whole life felt as though it was out of control. He hadn't realised just how safe Alex had made him feel. That sounded bloody daft; a woman making you feel safe, but it was true. Alex had made him feel loved, had made him feel part of something special. Now he had nothing, no one to anchor him to his life, no one to share things with, and he felt adrift and directionless.

A sudden gust of cold wind hit him like a slap and as it did so, a crash of thunder seemed to split the sky in two and the heavens opened. He was drenched almost instantly, water dripping from his hair and eyelashes, his shoes filling with grit. Gene began to swear viciously as he walked, aiming his curses at every woman he'd ever had the misfortune to know.

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_As she climbed out of the pool, squeezing the water from her hair, Alex realised that she didn't have a towel. _

_Shit! ........Shit, shit and bugger! _

_How could she have been so stupid, she raged, wondering what the hell she was going to do. The sun had gone in whilst she'd been swimming, so there was no chance of drying off naturally and to be honest, she really didn't want to hang around in a state of undress in case Gene returned. Frantically, she rummaged through her overnight bag, but there was nothing in there that could be used in place of a towel. Bugger. Now she had no choice but to borrow one from Gene's bathroom. Well, while she was in there she could sort out her smudged make-up too, she reasoned, as she rounded the side of the pool. Glancing up, she noticed the storm clouds that Ava had pointed out, were almost directly above the house. Maybe she wouldn't be able to wait in the garden for Gene after all. _

_She tried not to drip on the floor too much as she hurried through the living room, clutching her make-up bag and a change of underwear. The hall presented her with two doors; one, half closed, the other wide open, revealing the white tiled bathroom. Alex made straight for it and locked herself in, before tidying herself up as quickly as she could, washing off her old make-up and drying herself on one of the towels she found on the rail. She couldn't do anything about her hair, but she dried it as best she could, twisting it up into a loose knot, before she turned her attention to her face. Reapplying her usual make-up would take too long and it would only melt again, so she decided on just a quick dab of moisturiser and a dusting of powder to take the shine off. She finished off with two coats of mascara, not wanting to be entirely bare-faced when she meet Gene._

_She paused for a minute studying the uncluttered room, and then casually opened the doors of the mirrored cabinet above the sink, steadfastly ignoring the little voice in her head that asked her what the bloody hell she thought she was doing. A quick check of its contents revealed no sign of any feminine cosmetics or toiletries. Good, she thought with a small but satisfied smile; no signs of any permanent complications in Gene's Spanish existence were in evidence in here, at least._

_Acutely aware that she was wasting time, she shut the cabinet doors once more and sprayed her wrists and neck with her perfume before pulling on clean underwear; black lace trimmed with tiny pale pink roses. It was hopelessly impractical but wearing fancy underwear made her feel so much better than boring, plain cotton stuff. _

_Her clothes were still out by the pool and she realised that she really couldn't face putting her jumper and boots back on in this heat. Perhaps she could find a pair of scissors and turn her jeans into cut-offs? As she hesitated, wondering what on earth she could wear instead of her jumper, she spied one of Gene's shirts hanging on the back of the bathroom door, half hidden by a towel. Alex unhooked it, and brought the soft cream linen up to her face, inhaling his scent; breathing in the essence of the man she loved. Even though she knew that she shouldn't, she couldn't resist pulling the shirt on, doing up the buttons with shaking fingers, before she gathered up her things and went outside to retrieve her clothes. _

_Just as she reached the veranda, a sudden gust of cold air swirled around her and a huge crash of thunder made her jump out of her skin. As the thunder echoed off the hills, the rain suddenly poured from the sky, soaking everything in the garden, including Alex's bag and clothes, in seconds._

_When it seemed that the worst of the rain was over, she dived outside to grab the soggy garments, hurrying back to the cover of the veranda . Well, she couldn't put her jeans back on now, even if she did make them into shorts. They were wet through. Making the best of the situation, she un-threaded the thin belt from them and buckled it round her waist, making Gene's shirt into a mini-dress. She cursed the fact that the only shoes she had were her heeled ankle boots, knowing that if she put them back on, she would look undeniably tarty. Still, beggars can't be choosers, she told herself sternly, as she pulled on the boots and went to inside to perch daintily on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs, waiting for Gene to return home. After a minute or so, she realised that she felt ridiculous, sitting there all prim and proper, and so she resumed her restless pacing, her eyes flicking between the front door and the door of the hall that led to the bathroom. _

_When she'd made her mad dash for a towel, she'd been so worried about getting herself dressed and dried that she'd not given the other room a second thought as she'd rushed past. Now she kept thinking about that other door, the one that had stood tantalisingly half closed, revealing nothing of its contents. The one that could be the door to Gene's bedroom._

_I'll just take a quick look, she told herself, unable to resist any longer. I won't touch anything. I just want to see what it looks like. Butterflies fluttered and danced in her stomach as she made her carefully back across the living room to the hall. Hardly daring to breath, she pushed open the bedroom door and peered in. _

_It was a spare room, unused and dark, the shutters closed firmly across the French doors that she'd seen from the garden. The only furniture was a metal bedstead with a unmade mattress and a chest of drawers. Gene clearly didn't entertain visitors here, then. Well, not the kind that slept in a separate bed, anyway she reasoned grimly. So where was his room?_

_Stepping back into the hall, she ventured further, rounding a corner and finding herself faced with a short corridor. At the end, another door stood half-open and Alex felt her heart began to beat faster as she walked towards it, her heels sounding shockingly loud in the stillness. Tentatively, she pushed open the door, dreading what she might find there. _

_As with the other bedroom, French doors led onto the garden and pool, but in here, the shutters stood open, filling the room with light. The bed was huge, dominating the room with its carved wooden headboard and cool white sheets. The bedside table nearest to her held a glass of water, a packet of cigarettes and a paperback book. The one on the other side of the bed was mercifully empty. _

_Alex sat down on the bed, her knees suddenly shaky. She had no idea what she'd expected to find, in this room, but she was filled with relief that there didn't seem to be anyone else sharing this idyllic little house with Gene. __Without really knowing why, she reached out and picked up the book, flicking through the pages with her thumb as she studied the cover. Len Deighton; Gene's reading preferences didn't change when he was on holiday then, she thought with a wry grin. As she put it back on the bedside table, the scrap of paper that Gene was using as a bookmark fell out. Although, it wasn't actually a piece of paper, she realised as she picked it up. It was the edge of a photo, an inch or so wide, one side ripped and uneven._

_Alex turned it over, her eyes filling with sudden tears as she studied the image. She had exactly the same photo somewhere in her flat. Taken by Luigi at Chris and Shaz'z engagement party, it was, in its entirety, a picture of the happy couple holding up champagne glasses. She'd been sitting next to them when it was taken and was half in the shot._

_Gene had torn both Chris and Shaz out of the photo, leaving just her, on the edge of the frame. She was half in profile, looking away from the camera, her face open and relaxed, her eyes shinning with delight as she'd laughed at some silly remark of his. It was clear that she'd been happy; blissfully so, she recalled, remembering that only minutes after the photo had been taken she'd kissed Gene for the very first time._

_And now he was using it as his bookmark. Was that good or bad? Did it mean he treasured this particular photograph, or that he just couldn't find anything else to mark his place? It was impossible to guess with a man as emotionally closed as Gene. _

_She suddenly felt distinctly uncomfortable about being in his bedroom without his knowledge. She put the photo back and, replacing the book on the bedside table, made her way back to the living room. She leaned against the frame of the open French doors, watching the raindrops dancing on the surface of the swimming pool, breathing in the scent of dusty earth and wet leaves. She gave a deep shiver, her whole body tense, unable to relax. Trouble was, the thought of seeing Gene again was terrifying. What if he didn't want her any more? _

_If he rejected her, he would destroy her. _

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Stupid tosser, he berated himself as he squelched muddily past Tomaso and Maria's farm. Why in the name of Christ had he decided to walk home? The rain was easing off now, but he was soaked to the skin. He should have stayed at the bar until Andres had come back from his airport run, or until Ava had deigned to show up, but he knew in his heart why he hadn't chosen either of those easier options.

He didn't want to see Ava; didn't want to fall out with her in public. Not that he wanted to have a row in the first place but she was clearly intent on pissing him off. He wouldn't go back there this evening, either. That'd show her. He'd get a few hours kip and then he'd go back down to the marina and trawl the bars there instead. They were always crammed to the rafters with drunk and desperate woman and that was what he wanted tonight; drunk and desperate and no questions asked. Someone who'd let him fuck her for the price of a few of gin & tonics.

Gene snorted humorlessly as he trudged wearily up the last hundred yards of the track. Who was he trying to kid. He knew exactly how his evening would pan out. He'd get some kip, wake up grumpy and miserable, and then make himself something to eat; soup and toast probably, seeing as that was all that was in the cupboards. Then he'd drink yet another bottle of whisky whilst watching a video. And he knew that at some point in the evening, when he was too drunk to stop himself, he'd watch that bloody Mockingbird film again.

It wasn't his idea of entertainment really, Gregory Peck being all decent and family-orientated, but somehow he just couldn't stop himself from watching it. He knew why n'all. It wasn't because he liked the film; it was because he remembered watching it with Alex, how he'd kissed away her tears afterwards and drawn her down to lie next to him on the sofa, slowly undressing her, kissing and stroking her skin, moving inside her until she'd cried out with pleasure, losing himself in her as he'd followed her to her peak. Even more painful than that particular memory, was the recollection of how they'd been afterwards; how they'd just lain there, gazing at each other, and he'd been lost in her eyes, feeling more complete than he'd ever felt in his life before.

He let out a groan of frustrated desire, knowing that before he could sleep he would have to give in to the demands of his body and sort himself out with a lonely and ultimately unsatisfying wank.

He should stop watching the film, stop thinking about her. What they'd had together was gone forever and he had to stop tormenting himself with the memories. He just had to keep telling himself that it was better for him that it had ended sooner rather than later. She'd never have stayed with him; he wasn't her type. She'd made that perfectly clear by marrying Oliver 'posh-bollocks' Ryecroft as soon as she could.

Jesus Christ, why couldn't he stop thinking about her! He was doing his best , but no amount of alcohol or women could rid him of the constant torment of wanting Alex. Trouble was, he couldn't even talk to anyone about it. None of the team knew what had happened, and he wanted to keep it that way.

At times, it was almost impossible to keep his temper in check when they talked about her, she'd got under their skin so much. They all loved her. Even Ray had started prattling on about the wedding when he'd rung the station on Tuesday to check that Shaz had taken the suit back. The international line had been terrible as usual but he'd quite clearly heard the gossipy tone of delight in his DS's voice.

"Why'd you walk out in a huff like that, Guv? Honestly, you missed the best wedding I've ever been to! It were like something from a bloody film after you'd done a runner…."

Gene had cut him off angrily. "Listen Ray, I didn't ring to talk about the sodding wedding! I rang to see if Shaz had returned the suit."

"Of course she has, Guv. She took it back yesterd'y morning…… Listen, Guv, about DI Drake…."

"That's enough, Ray! What DI Drake does is not my concern. She doesn't work wi' us any more and I do not want hear that woman's name mentioned in my presence ever again! Is that clear?"

"Yes Guv."

"Right. I'll see you next Monday, then."

He recalled Ray's words as he reached his house at last; "_like something from a film_"….. I bet it bloody was, he thought sourly, with a big marquee, gallons of champagne and all those posh bastards…….. and Alex in that dress, looking so incredibly beautiful that it had physically hurt him to look at her.

It was his own fault. What the hell had he been thinking by even agreeing to be involved in the whole fiasco in the first place? He clenched his fists, trying to rid himself of the memory of his fingers brushing her skin as he'd done up the zip of her dress in Luigi's. He had to keep reminding himself that he was well out of it. Trouble was, it didn't feel as though he was. It felt like shit.

Angrily, Gene dragged his door keys from his jeans pocket and let himself through the door in the wall. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun and in the courtyard, the raindrops sparkled on the sunlit bougainvillea petals.

He unlocked the front door, shutting it wearily behind him and leaning back against it, eyes closed, thankful to be home. He took a deep breath, drawing in the mingled scents of the rain and the wet, dusty garden. There was something else there too; an achingly familiar perfume; roses….. and…… vanilla……and spices. Gene took another breath, his body beginning to tremble with remembered desire. He was truly going mad now; his imagination running away with him.

His house smelt of her perfume.

"_Alex._" He breathed her name, the merest whisper of sound.

He opened his eyes and there she was; standing shyly in the doorway to the garden, looking like some beautiful, unearthly vision, her hair twisted up in some deceptively simple style, the light highlighting every perfect curve of her perfect body……

Christ, he still must be really pissed if he was hallucinating. He shook his head, closing his eyes again as he did so, trying to clear the image of her from his sight, but when he opened them once more, she was still there, hands clasped like a supplicant in front of her, her mouth curving slowly into an uncertain smile.

She was real.

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**To be continued.....**


	10. All of My Heart:Remembering

**I am posting two chapters at the same time as they need to be read together as one event. **

**I have to say that they have almost driven me mad. I hadn't anticipated how difficult it is to write something with this much dialogue from two differing POV's.**

**Anyway, here they are and I hope that they work. As always thank you to everyone who reads the dark wanderings of my angsty little mind. It's much appreciated.**

**Characters belong to Kudos and the lyrics are the property of ABC**

****

**Once upon a time when we were friends**

**I gave you my heart, the story ends**

**No happy ever after........**

**What's it like to have loved and to lose her touch?**

**What's it like to have loved and to lose that much?**

****

Oh God……………

Gene swallowed uncomfortably, feeling the lump in his throat as he struggled to breathe.

She was really here.

Alex was here.

He wanted her so much that he could hardly stand, his whole being dizzy with longing. The knowledge that she could still have such an overwhelming effect terrified him and his heart began to pound, panic clutching at his chest. Why was she here, anyway? Maybe she hadn't gone to the Bahamas after all. Maybe he'd misheard and what she'd really said was Barcelona......... Or even Benidorm?

His thoughts raced as he struggled to make sense of it all. He forced himself to stand straighter, schooling his expression into one of icy indifference. How the fuck had she known about this place anyway?

He'd never like surprises, he'd always loathed that precarious, teetering moment as everything hung between certainty and uncertainty. It unbalanced and unnerved him, and as ever, that made him angry. He tried to sort out how he felt, what he wanted to say, but it was all too overwhelming. Whatever she was doing here, he couldn't let his guard down now, not this time. She'd destroy him.

The slow burn of belligerent resentment that he'd been nursing all the way home, suddenly flared into defensive rage and without pausing to think, he panicked and snapped at her, blurting out the first thing that came into his drink be-fuddled brain.

"I thought you were on your honeymoon. Slumming it a bit here, aren't you? Or did Ryecroft bring you to sunny Spain to laugh at the lower orders?"

Scowling ferociously, he let the anger spread and grow within him, arming himself against her, watching with a sense of vicious satisfaction as the smile slipped from her face. He was furious with her for just being there, for having the nerve to stand there so calmly, in _HIS_ house, in the one place that he'd thought was his refuge from her.

He walked carefully into the centre of the room, claiming the space for himself, needing to assert his ownership, but also very aware of how drunk he still was. She started to answer and he cut her off, not ready to listen to what she had to say. He couldn't allow her to see how weak she made him; not until he knew what it was she wanted from him.

"Incidentally, what _are_ you doing in my house? You are no doubt aware that Spain has laws about breaking and entering, the same as England does?"

She nodded, watching him warily with those incredible eyes of hers.

"Well?" he snapped, making his voice deliberately hard. "I'm waiting for an answer."

"I came to talk to you about what happened.. … about the wedding…" Her voice was soft and hesitant and Gene felt shivers of longing skitter traitorously down his spine. His body wanted her, even if his mind was refusing to admit any such thing.

"Oh yes, the wedding! Do you know, it had completely slipped my mind! Yes, let's talk about that shall we?"

He gave her a wintry smile, making sure that his tone was bitingly cold, his reaction fuelled by the icy fear that gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Resolutely ignoring the look of bewildered disbelief on her face, he concentrated on suppressing the little voice inside his head that was asking him what the bloody hell he thought he was playing at. He was angry and scared and suddenly he didn't give a toss about why she there. All that mattered was that he was going to get his attack in first because if he didn't, he was lost.

"Why did you do it, Alex? Why did you make me stand there, dressed up like a twat while you married another man? How could you ask me to do that for you? You must have known how I'd feel about it? Wanted a good laugh, did you? One final humiliation of me before you pissed off to your la-di-dah new life!"

He saw her eyes grow wide with shock at his words.

"No! It wasn't like that! I 'd never have asked you if I'd known how you felt."

She moved from her place in the doorway and came towards him, stopping on the other side of the kitchen table, obviously unsure about coming any closer. She shook her head in sorrowful denial. "You have to believe me. I thought you were perfectly happy with the way things were"

"Happy! You think I was _happy_ that we split up? That I had to sit there, night after night and watch that posh wanker whisper sweet nothings in your ear. You think I was _happy_ that it was him that went upstairs with you instead of me! You're the one that's supposed to know about all that psychological emotional bollocks, but it's very clear that you knew nothing about how I felt, Alex! Nothing! Happy is the last word on earth that I would have used to describe my state of mind!"

He watched the disbelief spark into anger as he shouted, welcoming the indignant fury that glittered in her eyes.

Good.

She was angry too, now and it had always been easier to fight her rather than love her. He tensed himself for battle as she narrowed her eyes and shouted back at him.

"I'm a psychologist, for Christ's sake, not a bloody mind-reader! Anyone would have thought that you were made of stone, for all the emotion you ever show! I never knew how you felt about us when we were together and I never knew how you felt about us splitting up either! Not once did I even get the slightest hint that you cared about what was going on between me and Oliver! You were pretty busy yourself most evenings with that Lisa bimbo draping herself over you at every opportunity she got! Every time I ever looked at you, you had a hand on her arse! Do you think that made _ME_ happy, Gene? Watching you with her! Knowing that you were taking her home to your bed!"

"Oh for God's sake! I only took up wi' Lisa because you were getting a bloody good seeing to from Doctor Dickhead!"

He watched as she struggled to speak for an instant, almost overcome with rage. "So you're telling me it was my fault that you got involved with that silly little tart, are you? You didn't have to, Gene! _You_ made the choice to screw her. It was nothing to do with me!"

She was jealous, he thought incredulously. Alex was jealous of Lisa. The realisation flashed across his mind for an instant before he retaliated, unable to stop himself shouting back. This was how it was; how it had always been with him and Alex. He couldn't help himself. She was so bloody confrontational and so damn frustrating that even when he tried to have a reasonable conversation with her, he found himself arguing instead.

"So what else was I supposed to do! Sit in the corner like some sad lonely old bastard while you spent every evening with Mr Fancy-Pants surgeon? I tried Alex, I really did, but you can't expect to have everything your own way. You couldn't expect me not have a social life just because you wanted us to stay friends!"

"Social life?....._SOCIAL LIFE!_So shagging every nubile twenty-something within a five-mile radius of the station is a social life, is it? Do you have _ANY_ idea what sort of stories I had to listen to every morning when I came into work!"

Her voice rose to an anguished shriek and for the first time since they'd split up, all those months ago, he realised that maybe she hadn't been happy about what had happened either. So why hadn't she said anything? Why hadn't she let him know how she'd felt? She was always so bloody snooty, so "Little Miss Independent" that he never knew what the fuck she was thinking.

The voice in his head was louder now, urging him to calm down and listen to what she had to say, warning him that he was messing things up even more, but he couldn't stop. His own anger and the hurt were just too strong and he couldn't hold back, clenching his hands into fists to stop them trembling as he replied with his usual sarcasm.

"I don't listen to office gossip as a rule, but I'm sure you're going to enlighten me." That wasn't true. He knew damn well how filthy the stories had been. He'd made sure that Ray had known every salacious detail, knowing full well that Alex would end up hearing them too.

"Ray, Chris, all the lads; talking about you, describing the women that you'd picked up, laughing about what you'd done with them. It hurt............it hurt me so much that I obviously meant so little to you. I didn't ask you for anything when we split up, except possibly a little respect, but you couldn't even manage that."

She still couldn't see it. Still didn't realise why he'd behaved like such a bastard. The ache in his chest was so painful now that it stopped his throat and he struggled to keep his voice from shaking.

"That's not true, Alex. You did ask me for something. You asked me to do the one thing that was almost impossible for me. You wanted us to be friends." He shook his head, his mouth set in a grimace of pain. "You sat there and gave me the brush-off and told me that you still wanted to friends."

"And you believed me, didn't you, you stupid man!" she screamed at him, her face twisted with despair, fury driving her forward as she closed the gap between them at last.

"Of course I bloody did!" Gene roared, frustrated beyond measure by such a seemingly ridiculous turn in the conversation. "I remember your exact words; _'I still want us to be friends, Gene'_. Stupidly, I was willing to cling on to any scrap of hope you might have thrown me, so why wouldn't I have believed you?

"Because when a woman says something like that, that's not what they really mean! They don't _actually_ want to be friends! They either want you to sod off and never bother them again, or they're secretly hoping that maybe you'll change your mind and the relationship will begin again!"

"How the hell could it begin again! You started seeing someone else!"

Christ Almighty! It was impossible to argue properly with a woman. All they did was twist everything round and make totally illogical statements; mad as bag of snakes didn't even begin to cover it.

"It wasn't really serious! I just wanted you to realise what you were missing!"

"For fucks' sake, Alex! How was I supposed to work that out! Before I knew it, you were engaged to him. Why would I think that you still wanted me? You were marrying him! That's pretty damn serious in my opinion!"

He jabbed a finger at her chest in sheer frustration at the nonsense she was coming out with. He would never, ever understand her! He couldn't quite believe that he was even willing to try and get to grips with what went on in that pretty little head of hers!

"But it was never meant to get that far! You were meant to stop me! You were meant to come and get me back!......But you didn't."

He heard her voice wobble and break on the last word. Oh bloody marvellous. Now she was going to cry. Women always did that and it wasn't fair. It was way below the belt, because a bloke was always going to feel like a complete bastard if he made a bird cry.

He could feel himself weakening. She was so close to him now; all endless legs, and huge green eyes… and that damn scent…... All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and kiss her, tell her that everything was going to be OK, but he couldn't let himself think like that. How did that stupid song go? "_And a taste of honey's worse than none at all_". Too bloody right it was. He wished he'd never had the chance to know just what he was missing. It would hurt even more when she rejected him again. Better to never let her have the chance to so.

"Oh no! You can't blame that one on me, Alex. I've been there before, chasing after you like some love-sick nancy-boy. Remember?..... You and me in Luigi's?...... Sea scallops with pineapple rings, and me dying wi' me boots on as you slapped me back down. After that, there was no way on God's earth that I was going to chase after you again!"

"Oh for God's sake!"

He saw her roll her eyes in annoyance, before quickly spreading out her hands in front of her in a mollifying gesture, obviously trying to take the sting from her words. Frowning, he followed the arc of her fingers with his gaze, something was different about them…...what was it?......... He lost his train of thought as she snapped back at him, her exasperation with him clearly evident.

"Look, I came to say sorry about what happened at the church but if you're going to rake up the past, then all I can say is that I apologise about that as well, but you know as well as I do that it didn't happen quite like that, and I didn't exactly slap you down!"

For some reason, her attempt to placate him made things far worse; he felt as though he was a sulky child being humoured by its mother. How bloody dare she just brush it all away, and try to excuse her behaviour. He'd taken ages to recover from that particular incident and all he'd done that time was try his luck, albeit in a fairly obvious way. She had no idea how cold and cutting she could be when she wanted to and she clearly had no idea at all of how hopeless he'd felt as he'd walked her to the altar and left her by Ryecroft's side.

He let all the bitterness that he'd kept inside for months, pour from him, revealing the depth of his true feelings, knowing that he was hurting her, but somehow wanting to, _needing_ to do so. He wanted to make her feel every bit as destroyed and humiliated as he did. Maybe that would mean that he was safe from her at last.

"You're sorry?....... Do you have _ANY_ idea of what you've done? How bloody worthless and shitty you made me feel? And now you turn up here, and expect me to be pleased to see you. How long will it be this time before you're fed up with me, Alex, and you kick me back into the gutter again so you can run off with some other rich wanker?........ Speaking of which; where is lover-boy? Got bored of him have you and sneaked back to me for a bit of rough? Well, I suggest you just piss off back to wherever you came from, luv, because you're out of luck as far as that's concerned. I might be rough, sweetheart, but even I draw the line at sloppy seconds!"

He stood motionless, his face impassive, his body and soul raw with pain as he watched her struggle to speak.

"Gene…….. don't be like this...." Her eyes were dark with grief and a single tear crept down the curve of her cheekbone as she reached out to him with one trembling hand. "Please..."

Oh God……..there it was.

That word.......

"Please"

The word she never said; the word that had the power to render him helpless, his knees weak with desire, his whole body aching for her. He forced his gaze from hers, not wanting her to see the need in his eyes, staring at her hands once more as she reached out beseechingly for him, and with a sensation akin to being punched in the guts, his de-railed thought hit him like a freight train.

It wasn't there.

Her engagement ring…….. she wasn't wearing it…...........and she wasn't wearing a wedding ring either…….

Oh shit.

You stupid, stupid, _STUPID_ bastard..…Why didn't you let her explain?…..Why didn't you notice it sooner?…..

Fuck…

What the bloody hell had he done…..she 'd never be his now......not after everything he'd just said.

Gene gazed at her in despair, consumed with grief and longing, preparing himself for her inevitable rejection as she began to speak once more.


	11. All of My Heart:Surrendering

******Once again the characters belong to Kudos and the lyrics are the property of ABC**

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**No I won't be told there's a crock of gold ****at the end of the rainbow**

**Or that pleasure and pain, sunshine and rain m****ight make this love grow **

**But I hope and I pray **

**That maybe someday**

**You'll walk in the room with my heart**

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_The courtyard door slammed suddenly, making her jump and Alex heard a key rattle in the lock of the front door. She spun round, her heart racing, as Gene walked into the room. _

_He didn't notice her as he leaned back against the door, his eyes closed. Alex gazed at him, her whole body aching with the need to wrap her arms round him and tell him that everything was going to be OK. He looked terrible; drawn and exhausted, his face set in a grim frown. His black linen shirt only accentuated the dark shadows under his eyes, and he'd evidently been caught in the storm as it was soaking wet, the material clinging to his body, his damp hair falling across his forehead. He drew a deep breath, eyes still closed, his weariness evident in the set of his slumped shoulders, and, she saw his face soften slightly. He whispered a word, but she was too far away to hear what he said._

_She wanted him so much that she could hardly stand up, dizzy with longing at the sight of him, as he opened his eyes and looked straight at her, the shock on his face clear for her to see. He closed his eyes again, shaking his head as though he was trying to clear his vision._

_When he looked at her once more, Alex smiled softly, forcing herself to remain still as she clasped her hands in front of her, fighting the urge to cross them protectively over her chest, far from certain of her welcome._

_She watched as he struggled to comprehend the fact that she was really there, emotions chasing across his face too quickly for her to register them. She saw him force himself to stand up straighter, and her smile slipped a little as an expression of icy disdain stole across his features. _

_When Gene finally spoke, Alex realised that this wasn't going to be easy. She'd been realistic enough to accept that perhaps he wouldn't welcome her with open arms, but she honestly hadn't expected quite such a hostile reaction from him. He walked forcefully into the middle of the room, and she noted the slight lurch in his stride, the overly careful way in which he placed his door keys on the table. Oh Christ, he's drunk, she thought her heart sinking. She remained where she was, watching him warily, unsure of what to say until he snapped at her._

"_Well? I'm waiting for an answer!"_

_She tried to explain, but she stumbled over her words, not knowing just how to phrase it. What was she supposed to say anyway? I came here to tell that I love you? That I want you forever? She just couldn't say it; she wanted to, but she was unsettled by his growing hostility, and bitterly aware of his less than enthusiastic welcome. She reminded herself that she had to maintain some some sort of dignity until she had a better idea of how he felt about her; she couldn't just throw herself at him, could she?_

"_I came to talk to you about what happened..… about the wedding…"_

"_Oh yes, the wedding! Do you know, it had completely slipped my mind! Yes, let's talk about that shall we?"_

_The sarcasm in his voice as he replied was almost unbearable and Alex gazed at him in bewilderment, devastated by his vicious tone. She could hear his hurt and fury as he spat accusations at her, his face twisted into a bitter scowl. _

_Closing some of the distance between them, she managed to speak, desperately trying to tell him that he was wrong, trying to make him realise that she hadn't had the first clue about how he felt, but it was useless; he just shouted even more. She stopped, letting the kitchen table form a barrier between them, afraid to get too close to him as he raged at her._

"…………_You're the one that's supposed to know about all that psychological emotional bollocks, but it's very clear that you know nothing about how I felt, Alex! Nothing! Happy is the last thing last word on earth that I would have used to describe my state of mind!"_

_His words made her temper flare suddenly, the hot rush of anger steadying her, giving her the courage to speak. He dare he just shout and not listen! How dare he accuse her of not realising how he felt! How was she supposed to know when he was always so bloody stone-faced. He'd never once showed her how he'd felt about them splitting up. Never!_

_I__t w__as his fault, not hers that she hadn't worked out what was going on behind that inscrutable mask he always wore. Not that he'd seemed that unhappy when she'd seen him Luigi's; he'd always been with that little blonde tart, his hands all over her as she'd __whispered and giggled to him at the bar. And now he was saying that it was all her fault! That he'd only started shagging Lisa because she was with Oliver. The bloody nerve of __him! His decisions had nothing to do with her!_

_Alex felt her stomach contract with long-buried jealously, almost unable to speak for a moment as a surge of pure rage gripped her. A part of her was telling her to calm down, that she needed to stay in control, but she just couldn't help herself. She shouted back at him, not caring that she was revealing just how hurt and jealous she'd been. There was something about Gene, something about the way he was so utterly intractable and so bloody confrontational that just made her end up shouting at him, even when she knew she shouldn't._

_And now he'd had the cheek to refer to his sordid little assignations as a social life! SOCIAL LIFE? God, he had a bloody cheek, describing it like that; a social life was dinner with friends or a night out at the cinema, not screwing your way through half the female occupants of the Square Mile! The fact that he'd moved on so quickly had hurt her immensely. How long had it been before the first stories had begun to circulate the office? _

_A week.........One lousy week. _

_It had made it plain to her just how little regard he had for her feelings; just seven days after splitting up with her, Gene had quite openly slept with someone else. She'd been a barmaid from the Spread Eagle if Alex recalled the gossip correctly. The lads had been full of jokes about just how "spread–eagled" her legs had been once the Guv got hold of her. She'd tried not to listen, but it had been impossible not to. Once they'd started, they'd seemed to just get worse and worse, and Gene had only seemed to encourage them. Week after week, she'd had to endure another filthy story about what, or rather whom, Gene had done the night before. And because she'd done her best to try and maintain a friendship with him, she'd said nothing, shrugging off the hurt and the humiliation, trying not to care that she hadn't asked anything of him, except a little respect._

_"That's not true, Alex. You did ask me for something..........You sat there and gave me the brush-off and told me that you still wanted to friends."_

_She could hear the anguish in his voice as he told her just how impossible that had been for him, and despite her heartache, yet again she found herself angered beyond measure by his total inability to pick upon the sub-text of that particular issue. _

_He still couldn't see it. Still couldn't understand what she'd really been trying to say. Of course she hadn't actually wanted to just be friends with him! She'd wanted him to be jealous of Oliver and realise that he needed her back! She screamed back him so loudly that her throat ached, her furious despair driving her forward, closing the gap between them at last._

"………_..I remember your exact words; 'I still want us to be friends, Gene'. Why shouldn't I have believed you?"_

_Oh for God's sake …….Why did men always insist on doing that? Latching on to one single phrase and never give any thought to the emotional issues that under-pinned an entire whole conversation. _

_Gene was yelling back at her now, jabbing an index finger at her chest in frustration as he shouted. "Why would I think you still wanted me? You were marrying him!". _

_Christ_ _Almighty! It was impossible to argue properly with a man! All they did was twist things round and try to reduce everything to a logical action or thought. They never left any room for the impulsive, irrational behaviour that pure emotion generated. She would never, ever understand him! She couldn't quite believe that she was wiling to try when he was being so bloody obtuse! How could he have not known what she needed from him? Alex opened her heart and gave voice to all her hurt and bitter disappointment._

"_But it was never meant to get that far! You were meant to stop me! You were meant to come and get me back!.......But you didn't."_

_She felt her voice wobble on the last word, felt the tears sting in her eyes as her throat threatened to close over with grief. I am NOT going cry, she told herself fiercely. I will NOT give him the satisfaction of seeing me weep. Men always thought that they'd scored points if they made you cry. It made them feel superior and she would not let herself weaken. _

_He was so close to her now; all broad shoulders and that silver-bright gaze... and the maddening scent of him .....cigarettes and whisky, citrus and spices......Alex felt a stab of involuntary lust deep within her. It was clear that her body still wanted him, even if her mind hated him at that exact moment._

_She saw Gene scowl ferociously and shake his head, reminding her of that date in Luigi's when he'd asked her to go upstairs with him, putting all of the blame squarely on her. Typical bloody Gene! Still unable to see anyone else's point of view. Still unable to listen to what anyone had to say. What was it with men and their stupid wounded pride? You turned them down and they behaved like silly children. He thought she'd been playing with him, that she'd slapped him back down for her own amusement. If only he 'd known what she was going through, if only she'd been able to tell him that all she'd been able to think about had been her parents and whether or not she could save them from their horrific fate. _

_She thought that she'd turned him down rather nicely given the circumstances. It hadn't been that bad for God's sake! And, with that thought at the forefront of her mind, she told him so, exasperated at his huffy, sulky petulance. The minute the words had left her mouth, she knew it had been totally the wrong thing to say, and she listened in mounting horror at the venom in his reply as he snarled back at her, the spitefully vitriolic phrases pouring from his mouth. _

_He hated her; despised her._

_That was obvious from everything he said. She'd given up everything and come all this way only to discover that he wanted nothing more to do with her. _

_She began to shake, her heart breaking, and he just kept raging at her, his face twisted into an expression of deepest loathing. Any pretence of indifference about him on her part was now in tatters, and Alex knew that she should leave while she still had some shred of dignity to cling to, but she couldn't; she couldn't walk away from him, not when she'd come this far._

"_Gene, don't be like this…..…" she pleaded, unable to keep silent, even though she knew that it was useless. A single tear tracked its way down her cheek as she reached out to him with one trembling hand, unable to stop herself, even as all her hopes and dreams irrevocably shattered. "Please..."_

_He stood motionless, staring as if transfixed at her hands and as he lifted that mesmerizing silver/blue gaze to meet hers once more, Alex felt her heart miss a beat ……………._

_Oh God…. there it was. ……_

_That look........_

_The one he'd had when he'd stood next to her at the altar, his eyes filled with helpless longing. A look that was the total antithesis of the mighty Gene Hunt, but that was also the absolute truth of the man behind the carefully guarded mask; it was the very soul of him, laid bare before her. _

_Her hand hovered over his heart, her fingers just short of touching his chest, afraid to make contact. Maybe it wasn't too late, if only she could find the right words._

"_Gene," she whispered, brokenly "Please...." _

_She looked down at her feet, unwilling to confront the rejection that she might see in his eyes and as she did so, she felt his hand tentatively cup her cheek, his fingers brushing over the sensitive skin of her jaw, lifting her face up to his, as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her body against his in a fierce embrace._

_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_

**tbc...........I promise.**


	12. Come Back & Stay For Good This Time

**What can I say, except sorry that this has taken so long to finish. I lost the ability to "see" Gene & Alex over the last couple of months, and I although I always knew how I wanted this story to end, I just couldn't find the words to write it. **

**Anyway, it would seem that they've come back to me and so, here it is, the final chapter. I really hope you like it. For some reason I'm incredibly nervous about this one as I know that so many of you have been waiting patiently for me to bring it to life.**

**A big thank you goes to Louella who reminded me about the song that I've used as the title of this chapter. Cheers, Lou.**

**Once again, a huge thank you to every one who takes the time to read. (and for your reviews as well). It means the world to me. **

**Characters are not mine; they're the property of Kudos. Lyrics are the property of Paul Young.**

**~.~**

**"Love, since you've been gone****  
I opened my eyes ****and I realize ****what we had together…..**

**Come back and stay for good this time……****  
Don't ever leave me..."**

**~.~**

He was lost the moment he touched her; oblivious to anything but the feel of her smooth, silken skin under his fingertips and the soft, warm curves of her body pressed against his. Gene slid his hand along the line of her jaw, pushing his fingers into her hair, lifting her face up to his at the same moment that Alex wrapped her hand round the back of his neck and gently pulled his head down towards hers.

His lips brushed hers, slowly, softly, terrified that she would pull away or, even worse than that, slap his face in retaliation for all the terrible things he'd just said to her. He knew that what he should do was apologise, try and put things right, but he couldn't think straight; all he could do was hold her to him as her tongue traced the curve of his top lip, and then there was no going back. He kissed her fiercely, with a hunger that bordered on desperation, feeling her fingers tighten in his hair as she made a soft whimper of sound. With his free hand, he couldn't resist stroking the soft swell of her breast, still worried that she would pull away, and he felt a surge of delighted surprise as she urged herself harder against him. Needing no further encouragement, he pulled at her dress, tugging it open roughly, hearing the material rip, the buttons bouncing and rattling as one by one, they hit the stone-flagged floor.

~.~

_She was lost the moment he touched her; un-heeding of anything other than his fingers threading their way through her hair, his body pressed hard against hers. Gene felt cold, his shirt soaking from the rainstorm, his hair curling damply at the nape of his neck as Alex pulled his head down to meet her mouth. She kissed him slowly, delicately, so afraid that he would push her away; that he really meant all of the terrible things he's just said. She knew that what they really needed to do was talk, that she need to apologise for her dreadful behaviour, but she couldn't stop kissing him, lost in the taste of him as her tongue slowly traced the curve of his top lip. She clung to him, digging her fingers into his hair, moulding her body against his as he kissed her back, unable to stop the whimper of sheer bliss that escaped her, as his kisses grew harder and more insistent. _

_Head spinning, all rational thought almost gone, Alex forced herself to try and attempt to work out exactly what was happening, but it was hopeless. All she could think about was how good Gene was making her feel. They'd gone from blazing row to blazing lust in about thirty seconds flat. Could it really be this easy? Would he ever forgive her for what she'd done? You're worrying too much, she told herself as she gave up the battle to think logically and just let herself fall headlong into the glorious sensation of Gene's mouth on hers._

_Alex felt his hand brushing the curve of her breast, heard the shirt rip as he pulled it open, his fingers sliding into the cups of her bra, stroking, teasing, her nipples peaking instantly, aching for his touch. She wanted him now, she couldn't wait anymore, she didn't care what he thought of her. It was clear, on a physical level at least, that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. His breathing was hoarse as he dragged his mouth from hers, trailing hot, wet kisses down her neck, over her collarbone to reach her breast, his teeth nipping lightly through the lace, She reached for his belt, wrenching the buckle undone, tugging down his jeans and boxers, her hands clumsy with desire, and as her fingers brushed the tip of his cock, then wrapped round the length of it, he groaned deeply and thrust hard into her hand._

"_God, Alex….want you…want …..you… so….. much…._

**~.~**

His whole body was on fire, his heart pounding, his breathing unsteady. He blazed with the need to be inside her, to make her his, to posses her. Gene tried to concentrate, struggling to think, to sort out exactly what was going on. One minute they'd been shouting abuse at one another and the next they were all over each other, like two horny teenagers. Could she really forgive him enough to be happy with what was happening? It couldn't be this easy to fix, could it? Maybe it was? Maybe he was worrying too much? He kissed his way across her collarbone, dipping his head to nip at her breast through the lace of her bra. The breath caught in his throat as he felt Alex undoing his belt and then her fingers were stroking him, driving him wild, leaving in no doubt as to what she wanted. He groaned deeply and thrust hard into her hand.

"God, Alex….want you…want …..you… so….. much….

Pulling her round, he edged her backwards for a few unsteady steps until her shoulders bumped against the wall, his mouth on her neck once more, his teeth biting hard at the flesh of her shoulder, giving in to the primitive desire to mark her, to brand her as his and his alone . Alex flung back her head, her body writhing against him, her hand working him hard, as he reached up under the hem of her ridiculously short dress and hooked his fingers under the elastic of her knickers.

She was soaking wet, her flesh hot and silky as he slipped two fingers inside her, curling them forwards, stroking skilfully, making her whimper once again. He leaned back slightly, wanting to see her face. Eyes closed, lower lip caught between her teeth, Alex's whole face was suffused with an expression of total desire. As if she could sense him watching her, she opened eyes and stared deep into his, her pupils dark and smoky, the need in them plain for him to see. He flexed his fingers again and she let out a loan groan of pure lust, her whole body shaking.

"Please…..please, Gene"

It was too much. He couldn't wait any longer. He needed her now and she clearly wanted him as much as he wanted her. Gene dragged down the damp scrap of black lace that constituted her underwear and as Alex wrapped one leg firmly round his hip, he lifted her up and surged into her, feeling her open, then close around him, hearing her moan wordlessly as he pushed in to the hilt. He held her there, one arm hooked under the curve of her arse, the other bracing himself against the wall, and for a long moment, he gazed at her, drinking her in, trying desperately to retain some sense of control.

**~.~**

_Alex felt cool touch of stone on her skin as Gene edged her backwards and she flung her head back in delight, feeling his teeth suddenly bite hard at the flesh of her shoulder. She knew that there would be a bruise there later, the mark of his ownership on her skin and she shivered with desire at the thought. She curled her fingers firmly around the hot, firm length of him, working him hard and felt his cock pulse in response. _

_His fingers stroked along the flesh of her inner thigh, wriggling their way under the elastic of her knickers, sliding inside her. She could feel the oily wetness between her thighs, letting out another whimper of pleasure as he curled his fingers forwards, hitting just the right spot, his touch igniting every nerve ending. Alex bit her lip hard, her eyes fluttering closed as she felt the first flickers of orgasm building within her. Oh God, she needed him now. Needed him in her, filling her completely, needed him to make her feel like no-one else could. _

_Opening her eyes she saw that he was watching her, his pupils huge and unfocused with lust. His fingers flexed again and she let out a ragged gasp, begging for him._

"_Please…..please, Gene"_

_He dragged down her underwear, lifting her up, hooking her leg higher with one hand. She could feel his cock nudge against her, hot and slick, just for an instant, before he surged up into her. Alex moaned in ecstasy and dug her fingers into his shoulders, holding his gaze as he held her still, braced against the wall. This was what she'd missed most during all those lonely, miserable months without him; the raw, uncompromising passion of him, the fierce joy that he seemed to take in possessing her totally._

_He began to move, slowly at first, his thrusts increasing steadily in depth and power until Alex could do nothing but wail with incoherent pleasure as she spiralled up into her climax, her whole body shaking, convulsing tightly around him. She felt him thrust harder, powering into her fiercely, his hips slamming against her, his breath coming in tortured gasps as his own climax gripped him. Alex could feel the tension in his body, the deep shudder of his final few thrusts, the hot rush as he spilled into her with a long, low groan that twisted into growl of total pleasure. _

_~.~_

Jesus Christ… ohhhhhh fuck….. he couldn't hold on much longer. He nearly come on the spot as he'd entered her, the sensation had been so intense. With a combination of sheer willpower and the fear of how bloody embarrassed he'd be if it happened, he'd managed to hold himself back, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle. She just felt too bloody good. In all those lonely, miserable months without her, he'd never once come close to feeling the way he did when he was with her. Gene gritted his teeth and held on for dear life as Alex came, her flesh convulsing around him, crying out in ecstasy as she shook with the force of her orgasm.

He really needed to come now, needed to feel himself flooding into her as her hot flesh tightened around his pulsing cock. The thought tipped him over the edge and he urged himself deeper into her, harder and harder, his heart racing and his breathing ragged as he came with a groan of near-pain, the pleasure so acute it made his whole body shudder uncontrollably.

He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the scent of her, trying to recover enough breath to speak. He let her leg down gently and slipped out of her, pulling her against him. He held her, not sure what to do or say but knowing that he had to do something before it all got too awkward.

Through the open French windows, he could hear the hiss of yet more rain and the muted mutter of thunder higher up the mountain. A drink, he thought… a drink will calm us both down, break the ice. His mouth twisted into a wry grimace….not that there should be very much ice left to break, given the fact that they'd just shagged each other senseless, but he never really knew what the hell was going on in Alex's mind. His eyes suddenly focused on the material of her dress… it wasn't a dress at all…

"That's my shirt" he mumbled indignantly, pulling away from her so that he could see it better, remembering the ripping sound as he'd pulled it undone. "You're wearing my bloody shirt!" Why the hell had he just said that? He knew that he'd sounded cross and sulky, but really, it didn't matter one way or the other about the shirt. He was just surprised that was all, and far too tired to watch what he said, let alone how he said it.

Alex gazed at him, her eyes still smoky and unfocused with the remnants of her orgasm.

"I know…my clothes got wet in the rain…I didn't think you'd mind." She gave him a mischievous grin. "I'm sorry Gene."

She glanced down, seeing the missing buttons and the jagged and torn material, and to his consternation, the grin wobbled and faded within seconds, the tears welling up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry" she told him again, and this time there was a sob in her tone as her face crumpled into an expression of utter desolation and she began to cry. Gene heaved a deep sigh and closed his eyes in resignation. This wasn't a good sign. Tears were never good and he really didn't have the energy to deal with them now. He knew that they had to talk at some point; that things need to be said, but please God, not right at this moment. He'd made her cry already and he'd only get in more of a mess, say the wrong thing again. He was exhausted; the phrase "shagged-out" had never been more appropriate as far as he was concerned and all he really wanted to do was go to sleep.

He looked at Alex again, noticing for the first time just how pale and tired she was. She was skinny as well, far too skinny, the flesh stretched tight over her cheekbones, the bones of her wrists as thin and delicate as a bird's. She hadn't been taking care of herself, that much was obvious. He realised that she was worn out too, emotionally as well as physically and that she needed him to take charge.

Suddenly he knew exactly the right thing to do, and bending down, he swung her up into his arms. She gave a small shriek of surprise, wrapping her arms around his neck and he was reminded vividly of carrying her into the station on the very first day he'd met her; when he'd thought she was just another a tom and she'd thought he was beyond contempt. It had taken them a long time to overcome those first misguided impressions of one another, and even longer for them to realise just how much they needed each other. Well, he needed her, at any rate. He knew that now, and all he had to do was to find the courage to her know how he felt. He mucked it up between them so many times and it wasn't going to happen again, he was absolutely certain about that.

~.~

_As Gene let her leg down and gently slipped out of her, Alex wrapped her arms around him tightly and clung to him, her legs trembling with exhaustion. She could feel his heart racing against her chest, his hot breath on her neck. She knew that she still needed to explain things to him before everything got too awkward or, worse still, he got angry with her again, but she hoped and prayed that the fact that they had just had the most incredible sex would go some way to curbing his temper. Unfortunately though, with Gene you could never be really sure how he was going to react. As she searched for the right words, listening to the sound of the rain outside, she heard him mutter something against her neck. He pulled away from her suddenly, his expression indignant. _

"_You're wearing my bloody shirt!" _

_She gazed at him, struggling to focus on him, her body still humming with the aftershocks of her orgasm._

"_I know…my clothes got wet in the rain…I didn't think you'd mind." She gave him a contrite grin, trying to make light of the situation, hoping that he wouldn't mind, although he'd sounded really pissed off. "I'm sorry Gene." _

_She glanced down and saw the missing buttons, the jagged and torn material. Oh shit……..it was ruined. ……..of course he was angry with her. She felt the tears welling up and was unable to stop them, her voice breaking into a sob as she apologised to him again._

_She saw him let out a deep sigh and close his eyes in resignation. That wasn't a good sign. He'd never liked tears, and she knew that he was always deeply uncomfortable when faced with any sort of hysterical woman, but she couldn't stop crying. She just couldn't find the energy to pull herself together; She was too tired to even think .Alex knew that they had to talk at some point; that things need to be said, but please God, not right at this moment. She was a complete mess and she knew she'd say the wrong thing. Gene looked exhausted too; the dark shadows under his eyes emphasising how pale and drawn his face was. It wasn't fair of her, dissolving into an emotional wreck when he was so obviously worn out, but all she wanted was for him to wrap his arms around her, for him to take care of her and make things better. _

_Without warning he stooped, swinging her up into his arms and she gave a small shriek of surprise, wondering what on earth he was doing, remembering the other time that he'd carried her like this. She'd been so frightened and alone, and in all the confusion and horror, when everyone else had looked at her with pity in their eyes, not knowing what to say to such a violently orphaned little girl, he'd bent down and talked to her softly, called her "little lady" and made her feel just a little bit better. He'd made her feel safe. He still did, even after all these years; even in this other strange, unexplained, inconceivable existence, and she needed him with her always. Now she just needed to find the words to explain how she felt. She'd messed it up between them so many times and it wasn't going to happen again, she was absolutely certain about that. _

_She held on to his neck as Gene carried her out into the hall and down the corridor into his bedroom, depositing her heavily onto the mattress. _

"_Sorry….you OK?" _

_He didn't wait for her answer, concentrating on pulling off her boots and removing her belt, before stripping off his own clothes, leaving everything in an untidy heap on the floor and climbing into bed. _

_Alex watched him warily, unsure of what to do next. He pulled the sheet out from under her and flung it back. "Well, come on then, get in. You look as knackered as I am, Bolly."_

_Bolly….he'd called her Bolly. _

_Alex felt her heart leap as she took off the torn shirt and lay down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She felt his hand cup her face softly, just moments before she slipped into a deep, contented sleep._

~.~

He wasn't sure of what to say, hoping that she would understand what he wanted without the need for too much conversation. He was so tired he could barely string a sentence together.

"Well, come on then, get in. You look as knackered as I am, Bolly."

He'd called her Bolly.

He'd said it without thinking, the familiar nickname coming unbidden to his lips, and his heart soared with relief as Alex smiled at him tremulously, pulling off the ruined shirt and lying down next to him. He pulled her into the crook of his arm, reaching up to cup her face with his hand, falling into a deep, contented sleep within seconds.

The early evening sun woke him. Hanging low in the sky, it shone directly through the open French windows, falling over his face and Alex's sleeping form. Gene drew a deep breath and breathed in the scent of her; roses ……and vanilla……. and spices. He turned slightly, studying her, unable to quite believe that she was really there, in his bed, with him.

She slept peacefully, curled on her side, one hand on his chest, a leg flung over his. The sunlight illuminated the light scattering of freckles on her nose, the generous sweep of her eyelashes, the luscious creaminess of her skin and he felt a deep, languid contentment spread through him at the sight of her. He grinned to himself as he recalled how he'd woken her earlier, slipping under the sheets to kiss every inch of her glorious body, his mouth tasting her, musky and sweet, his tongue lapping at her until she'd sobbed with delight. How she'd drawn him back up the bed, straddling him, still in the first throes of her orgasm, riding him until he'd shouted out, gripping her hips hard, pulling her down onto him as exploded into her, the world spinning and dipping crazily as he'd climaxed so hard that for a moment he'd thought he might pass out from the intensity of the feeling.

He needed a cigarette now, was desperate for one, in fact, but he didn't want to smoke in the bedroom; not with Alex there. He knew she didn't like it and even though it was his house and in theory he could do as he bloody well pleased, he eased himself from her embrace and, pulling his jeans and shirt back on, he grabbed the fag packet from his beside table, and made his way into the living room.

He went out on to the veranda to smoke, leaning against one of the wooden pillars, looking out across the swimming pool to the view of his bedroom beyond. Through the French windows, he could see a glimpse of Alex, still soundly asleep. He shook his head, his face breaking into another grin of delight. He was fairly sure that things were going to be alright between them; he just had to stop pussyfooting around and actually tell her how he felt, even though he was terrified at the very thought of it.

As he ran through a few phrases in his mind, trying them out in case they sounded ridiculously soppy, the telephone rang, its tone shrill and deafeningly loud in the heavy silence of the house. Gene hurried into the kitchen and grabbed the receiver, partly because of an ingrained copper's response to a ringing phone, but mostly because he didn't want Alex to be disturbed.

"Hello?.....Charlie! ……What the bloody hell have you been up to, ringing me about some bird you met in the Railway Arms……

~.~

_Alex woke to the feeling of warm sunlight on her face and the distinctly unwelcome absence of Gene in the bed bedside her. She opened her eyes, seeing movement outside on the veranda. It was Gene, staring into space as he smoked a cigarette. She saw his mouth curl into a delighted grin and she knew, without any doubt, that he was thinking of her. She smiled too, remembering how she'd woken earlier to the feel of Gene kissing his way down her body, his mouth hot and wet against her sensitive flesh, her fingers tangling in his hair as his tongue lapped and flickered, making her sob with delight. As she'd straddled him, the heat of her climax spreading throughout her whole body, she'd slid herself over him and onto him, pushing down hard until she could feel him high up inside her. She'd ridden him fast and hard, arching her back as he'd held her hips tight against him and shouted out as he'd spilled into her in a hot, sweet rush, and she'd thought that she would almost faint, the pleasure was so exquisite, colours spinning and swirling before her closed eyes._

_As she lay there, her body still heavy and languid with the aftermath, she heard the telephone begin to ring shrilly. Without even thinking about it, she was up and out of bed in an instant, pulling on Gene's torn shirt as she hurried down the corridor. As she reached the hall, she stopped. What the hell did she think she was doing? She didn't have to answer this phone. It wasn't hers and anyway, she wasn't even on duty, she was on holiday. She shook her head at her foolishness, amused at her ingrained, police officer's reaction to a ringing phone. Anyway, Gene had got there before her. She turned away, intending to let him have his conversation in private, but she was pulled up short by Gene's opening words and she couldn't help by listen._

"_Hello?.....Charlie! ……What the bloody hell have you been up to, ringing me about some bird you met in the Railway Arms……_"_What?…........Alex? Yes, she's here….....how the bloody hell did you know that?" _

_There was a long pause and Alex held her breath, waiting for Gene's reaction. She wasn't disappointed as his voice rose into an incredulous shout._

_"You did what!....... You sly old bastard!"_

_Alex crept nearer to the door now that she knew the conversation was definitely about her. Gene was standing with his back to her, laughing now at something that Charlie Armstrong was saying._

"_No, you're right, I don't deserve her……what do you mean 'God knows what she sees in me?'…… Yes, she is very beautiful. …. absolutely drop-dead gorgeous."_

_Alex felt a blush creep across her cheeks as she caught the note of pride in Gene's voice. _

"_Yes, I'll do things properly… What?... no, I won't mess it all up again, you cheeky sod! Well, she's naked and in my bed at this very moment, so yes,…. I suppose you could say it's very going well…. it's a bloody dream come true, to be honest."_

_She stifled a giggle, admiring the line of Gene's shoulders, outlined clearly by his black linen shirt. _

_"No I haven't talked to her yet……why? ……we've been a bit busy…….well, what do you think we've been doing, you dozy sod! ………………….yes, I know that I've got to apologise for being a total prick.…..All right, Charlie! There's no need to go on about it!…..I know I behaved badly………..well, you know full well how I feel about her. I bored you stupid about it, after all. ……Yes, I promise I'll tell her.…..it's just easier said than done, that's all……."_

_Alex watched as Gene ran a hand distractedly through his hair. Charlie was obviously giving him a hard time._

"_Oh come on Charlie! You know I'm not good at that sort of stufff………….what?……….just three little words? They'd be "mine's a pint" then, wouldn't they?……All right, all right……. I'm only joking……. of course I won't say that…… of course I love her, you prat! Being without her nearly bloody killed me, you know that! I'm not going to let her go again, am I? Not if I can help it. This is forever as far as I'm concerned." _

_Alex felt her heart skip a beat, jumping and pounding in her chest as though she'd been running for miles. He'd said it…Gene said that he loved her….that he wanted her forever. Not to her face, but at least she knew how he felt about her._

"_No! I don't want to talk to Peggy. Jesus Christ, if you put her on the phone, I'll never get away! Charlie? Charlie! ……Right, that's it…..I'm going now….." _

_Gene banged down the receiver, glaring as he did so. Alex saw him take a deep breath and square his shoulders, only for him to look up and catch sight of her, standing in the doorway. His face twisted with nerves, the panic in his eyes clearly visible, even from where she was standing._

"_That was Charlie." He shifted uneasily and cleared his throat._

"_Yes I know." She had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling at his obvious discomfort._

"_Oh…so you heard that, did you?" _

_She nodded again. "Yes. I heard most of what you were saying, actually."_

_Gene looked away from her, then down at the ground, before raising a hand to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck, before sneaking another worried glance at her. "What all of it? The whole conversation?"_

_Alex nodded, unable to stop herself from smiling any more. "Yes, all of it. Every little bit of it. Even the three little words." _

_His face froze for an instant and then he shrugged, diffidently, staring at his feet once more, male bravado obviously dictating that he front it out, despite his apparent terror. _

"_Well…now you know,….you know how I feel…." He paused, fixing her with his fierce silver/blue gaze, "…….about you. That I...you know,...... that I....." He stopped and just stood there, with an expression of such helpless longing on his face that Alex felt her knees buckle at the sight of him. She crossed the room to stand in front of him, trying to speak, but he shook his head, taking her face in his hands and kissing her deeply, again and again, showing her how he felt without the need for any words. _

"_So" he murmured eventually, drawing back from her, his expression oddly serious. "Would I be right in thinking that you didn't marry the knobby posh-bloke doctor after all?"_

_Alex stared back at him, caught off balance by his question, and as he flashed her a wide, naughty-boy grin, she began to smile, holding on to him tightly, the laughter bubbling up from deep inside her. She wasn't afraid to tell him now. She could finally let him know exactly what he meant to her, with fear of the consequences. He loved her and now that she knew the truth, it would be more than enough for her for the rest of her days._

~.~

Gene banged down the receiver quickly before Peggy could get to the phone. He'd never get away once she started interrogating him about his private life. Right, come on. You heard what Charlie said. Take a deep breath and just go and tell her. Just say it…out loud…...three little words…it can't be that hard, can it?

He looked up and saw her standing in the doorway; all green eyes, and endless legs, and tousled hair and he felt the panic clutch at his chest. She was so beautiful, so unbearably, terrifyingly beautiful that for a moment, he couldn't even speak, let alone tell her that he loved her.

"That was Charlie." Please God, let her say that she didn't hear anything; please let her say that she's only just woken up.

"Yes I know."

Shit. She knew it was Charlie. "Oh…so you heard that, did you?"

Bugger….apparently she'd heard most of what he'd said. He didn't want to ask the next couple of questions, but he knew he had to.

"What all of it? The whole conversation?"

He watched as Alex nodded, smiling. "Yes, all of it. Every little bit of it. Even the three little words."

He froze, his heart racing in terror. Come on Gene. You can do this. Get a bloody grip.

He shrugged, diffidently, trying to be nonchalant and failing utterly. Oh sod it. Just tell her. She knows anyway.

"Well…now you know,….you know how I feel…." He paused, wanting to see her face, but still unable to actually say the three little words out loud. "…….about you." He tried again to tell her, but he was tongue-tied, helpless in the face of her impossibly perfect beauty. She stared at him for a moment, an expression of such utter happiness on her face, before crossing the room to stand in front of him. She began to speak, but he shook his head, taking her face in his hands and kissing her deeply, again and again, telling her how he felt without the need for any words.

"So" he murmured eventually, drawing back from her, schooling his face into an expression of mock -severity. "Would I be right in thinking that you didn't marry the knobby posh-bloke doctor after all?"

Alex stared back at him, caught off guard and as he grinned at her, relieved that he'd managed to lighten the deeply emotional, and frankly terrifying mood, she began to laugh.

"No, I didn't marry him! I ran after you instead. Only _you_ were nowhere to be found and I ended up on a wild goose chase that led me to Manchester. I met Charlie in the Railway Arms."

He shrugged again, trying to make light of his desperate escape. "I came straight out here. I couldn't face seeing anyone. Watching you, getting ready to marry him nearly destroyed me, Alex."

She said nothing, but her fingers threaded their way through his and gripped them hard.

He shook his head in wonder, aiming for lightness of mood once again. "Fancy you meeting Charlie bloody Armstrong!"

"Thank God for me that I did, because I'd almost given up any hope of finding you. It was him that told me to get myself on a flight out here, because you were drinking yourself into an early grave." Alex reached out and stroked his face, her eyes soft with love.

"Listen. I know you find it hard to say, but I'm not afraid anymore. I want to say it. I _need_ to say it to you...... I love you. I don't want anyone else, Gene, I only want you…forever." She broke off her voice catching in her throat. "….and I'm so sorry about all the mess I've caused, all the pain I've put you through. I've been selfish and unthinking and I don't know how I can ever make it up to you…"

He stopped her words with a kiss, his head spinning with the incredible realisation that Alex Drake loved him. Nothing else mattered; nothing. She loved him and he would hold that knowledge close to his heart until his dying day. Right now, however, all he wanted to do was show her exactly how she'd just made him feel by uttering those three little words. And maybe, while he was showing her, he'd even find the courage to say them back to her.

"Alex" he growled.

"Yes?"

"Come back to bed."

~.~

_Alex put down her powder brush and stared at her face in the mirror. It was the first time since she'd woken up that she'd been alone in the peace and quiet of her flat and she took a minute to relish the silence. In all the rush and excitement she'd needed a moment just to calm down and so she had whispered her intention to him and slipped away upstairs for just five minutes to make herself presentable again. She studied her face in the mirror, making sure that her face was once again flawlessly made-up and, that all smudges of mascara were gone from around her eyes. It would seem that she always cried at occasions like this. _

_Satisfied with her appearance, she made her way over to the wardrobe, hanging up her heavy silk coat on a hanger, taking care not to crease it too much. The October day had been chilly, despite the sunshine and she'd been glad of its warmth, but she didn't need it now that she was indoors. __Finally, she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door, smiling in delight at the radiantly happy woman reflected there. The deep amethyst silk of her dress clung to her body, the tight bodice pushing up her breasts and accentuating her waist. _

_Inevitably, her eyes were drawn to the photograph that she kept tucked in the mirror frame and she smiled to herself, remembering the feel of his arm wrapped around her waist, his indrawn breath of surprise as she leaned into his embrace, the look of desire in his eyes ……. _

_Suddenly realising that she'd been far longer than five minutes, she gathered up her small handbag, and pulling the door of the flat closed behind her, she made her way downstairs._

_She hesitated at the doorway of the restaurant for a moment, watching as Luigi teased Gene about something. As she stood there, unsure of whether or not to interrupt them, Gene looked up and caught sight of her, staring as if transfixed, while the smoke from his cigarette trickled lazily from his mouth, wreathing around him a shifting blue haze, before drifting slowly up into the air._

_Alex blushed under his scrutiny, looking down at her hands with a small shy smile, as she smoothed out the skirts of her dress. When she raised her eyes to his again, he was still staring at her, a look of fierce pride on his face, his eyes dark and cloudy with love. There was a pause, the silence seeming to stretch forever as everything that had happened, everything that they were to each other, hung between them._

_Luigi stopped talking, realising that Gene's attention was focused entirely on someone else and that he wasn't listening to a word he said. He turned to see what had transfixed the usually self-possessed DCI and saw her, standing shyly in the doorway, looking like a fairytale princess, her hair pinned up on top of her head in some deceptively simple style, the perfect fit of her dress clinging to every perfect curve of her perfect body. He looked back at Gene's face and what he saw there was enough to make his heart sing with joy. _

_She walked further into room, accepting the delighted congratulations of her colleagues, making for the bar. Someone pressed a glass of champagne into her hand as from the corner of her eye, she saw Gene stride across the floor with his customary long-limed grace to stand beside her at the bar. Her hands trembled as she put the champagne glass down, afraid that she would spill it and as she moved to face him, he pulled her close, his fingers brushing against the skin of her back. She trembled, every nerve on fire, sparks of electricity shooting through her body at his touch. Alex knew that he could see everything that she felt for him written clearly on her face. She felt the whisper of his breath on his skin as he leaned forward to kiss her._

_~.~_

Her perfume surrounded him, making him dizzy with longing. This day had proved to be better than he'd ever dreamed it would be, and the best part of it all was Alex, in that dress, looking so incredibly beautiful that it almost hurt to look at her. She was perfect and he loved her so much. He'd told her so, many times, the fear of those words vanished in the certainty of her love for him.

"Better?" he asked softly, the word rumbling up from deep in his chest, his voice catching slightly.

Alex nodded in reply, her hand coming up to stroke his face. He smiled, bending his head to kiss her again, but he was suddenly dragged away by Ray and Chris, and the rest of the lads, all of them clapping him heartily on the back. He gave her a rueful grin and turned his attention to them, accepting their congratulations and their teasing remarks with a good natured grace.

~.~

_Alex found herself enveloped in a sudden cloud of confetti, and she turned to see Luigi standing in front of her, holding out his arms, tears in his eyes. _

"_Signora Hunt! Let me congratulate you! You look beautiful……no…… you look more than beautiful….you look stunning…the most gorgeous bride I have ever seen."_


End file.
